Another year almost over and what a year it’s been!

Despite the pandemic, we’ve had 2 major software releases, hosted virtual DriveWorks World, grown our team and continued to support the DriveWorks Community around the world.

Our investments in technology and our commitment to digital transformation meant we were well set up for working remotely.

Our transition this year has been smooth and we have remained open and operational throughout the pandemic.

All our teams have continued to work and support you as usual via email, by phone and web meeting where appropriate.

Our team have really embraced this time as an opportunity to improve, create and innovate.

Happy Holidays from DriveWorks

Sadly, this year the DriveWorks team haven’t been able to get together for our usual Christmas activity day and Christmas party! 

Instead, we decided to all get together (virtually of course) via Teams to wish each other a happy holiday and celebrate another year of hard work!

With our Christmas jumpers on, we opened our Christmas presents from DriveWorks, shared our Secret Santa’s and even had a ‘Guess who the Christmas tree belongs to‘ quiz!

It was great to see the DriveWorks team together before many of us take a well-deserved break!

We hope you have a wonderful festive season and we wish you all the best for the new year!

Continue your DriveWorks learning over the festive period by taking advantage of all our DriveWorks resources.

Connect With Us

Read the latest updates from the DriveWorks team on our blog and connect with us on social media to stay updated on product information, events and learning opportunities available.

Let’s connect!

The DriveWorks Community is a great resource for anyone using DriveWorks.

We’ve recently created a brand new community, with updated features and content based on your feedback.

Get involved and join us over at my.driveworks.co.uk

What is the DriveWorks Community?

The DriveWorks Community is our user portal, bringing together DriveWorks users from around the world. The community is a place for our resellers, customers and partners to come together and find useful resources. Whether you’re trialing DriveWorks Solo, familiar with DriveWorks Pro, or from a reseller sales, technical or order admin team, the community is a place for everyone.

It’s our opportunity to Help Others to Help Themselves by providing content, resources and opportunities to connect with other users.

The DriveWorks Community includes many important downloads – including DriveWorks software and PowerPacks, learning and training materials and many other useful resources.

What The New Community Means For You

We’ve built a brand new DriveWorks Community at my.driveworks.co.uk.

We’ve listened to user feedback about the DriveWorks Community and how we could improve it.

The new MyDriveWorks community includes improvements to the user experience, to make it easier for you to find the content you need.

We’ve personalised each page based on the software you have, so you only see what’s relevant to you.

We’ve improved the stability of downloads making them quicker and easier.

The NEW forum we’ve introduced enables you to connect with other people using DriveWorks – this is a great place to chat with others, share ideas, ask questions and share your knowledge with each other.

We’ve added even more learning resources and the new online learning portal makes it even easier for you to learn and see your progress. You can access the content to add to your knowledge from anywhere and at any time.

Overall, we’ve made sure you are better informed about what’s going on with more email notifications and clearer updates within the community.

With MyDriveWorks it’s even easier than ever to keep your knowledge and software up to date and ensure you’re getting the most from your DriveWorks software.

User Forum

Join the conversation in the DriveWorks forum. Share ideas and connect with other users.

Download Software

Download the latest DriveWorks software and PowerPacks or find previous versions.

Learning Portal

Access exclusive DriveWorks learning resources and build on your knowledge.

Webinars & Events

See upcoming events and webinars, sign up, get involved and join us to learn and network.

Get Involved

You need to create an account, even if you had an account in the previous DriveWorks Community.

It’s quick and easy to create a MyDriveWorks account and get access to the new resources.

Don’t Miss Part 1

Recently, we had a chance to sit down with Marie Planchard (virtually of course) and get to know a bit more about her early years, education, being a woman in engineering and what brought her to work for SOLIDWORKS.

Anyone that spends time with Marie learns pretty quickly that she shares just as much passion for SOLIDWORKS as she does for education.

In the first part, Heather and Marie chatted about her background and education,the path that lead Marie to SOLIDWORKS and past SOLIDWORKS Worlds.

Read Part 1 here.

What attracted you to take on the role of Director of Education?

“Early on in my career, I had already been impressed with how easy it was for students to start learning and designing with SOLIDWORKS.

At the community college level, I had been awarded a STEM grant to help about 15 technical high schools update their technology offerings.

As part of this, I spent time working on programs that focused on women in technology and in non-traditional roles.

We were encouraging girls to come into the school to learn welding, CAD, and machining.

It was a great time to be working in engineering.

Not only were we seeing more women involved in engineering, the SOLIDWORKS user groups were expanding as well as the excitement and momentum around SOLIDWORKS was growing.”

“When SOLIDWORKS offered me the role as Director of Education, I knew I could take what I was seeing as an educator locally and bring my vision to the world.

My belief was that this new 3D technology and how things were being designed in SOLIDWORKS would change engineering education around the world.

During my interview for the position, I presented to a room of about 15 people – all marketing and executives.

When I shared my vision with the group, everyone agreed wholeheartedly.

As I started in this role, I focused on creating lessons and curriculum for the educator.

The existing tutorials were fine, but I wanted to deliver things with the mindset of the educator and what I knew they needed in order to teach effectively.

There has not been a day since that I have not enjoyed getting up and going to work.”

What is your vision for the future of SOLIDWORKS Education Community?   

“Just as I was at the start of the SOLIDWORKS CAD journey, where we all learned about an easy to use desktop application – we are now entering into the next phase and it’s just as exciting.

We have the 3DEXPERIENCE Platform which has introduced cloud applications to education. Hardware is changing and times are certainly changing right now.

The 3DEXPERIENCE Platform is an easy-to-use cloud-based CAD tool for educators and will help them meet state and country teaching standards.

This application will help them to teach concepts of engineering, documentation, and manufacturing in a cloud environment.

As an educator I know it takes time for changes to be made, but I see the vision of the 3DEXPERIENCE Platform and I know that students and educators will want to be up and running quickly with cloud design tools such as xDesign.

Over the next couple of years, I see a connection being made between cloud and desktop – not all cloud, not all desktop – but slowly a transition to using both.”

How do you feel that the current pandemic environment has had an impact on learning?

“Good timing on this question as I have been interviewing customers recently on just this!

The ability for educators to utilize the 3DEXPERIENCE Platform at home with their students on any device at any time has had a positive effect on teaching!

There is no excuse or reason to not be able to work; you can go online and can be connected at 1am.

You don’t have to be in the computer lab at school and you can share easily with classmates and peers. Students and educators are able to connect and do well together in this environment.

Where I wish technology would advance more with the pandemic is in territories like Africa, Asia and even in parts of the USA where the internet is not strong.

With that challenge, no matter if it’s streaming entertainment or learning/using CAD – we aren’t where we need to be with internet availability.

Over the last 8+ months, I applaud educators for keeping students going and changing how they are offering learning and study materials to students.

Creative ways to offer exercises – shifting and relying more on real-life industry examples or videos from various industries – it’s keeping students engaged and learning.”

How do you see the SOLIDWORKS Education team being involved in the upcoming virtual 3DEXPERIENCE World event in 2021?

“It’s going to be fantastic!

As of right now, we have more students and educators registered than ever before!

3DEXPERIENCE World takes place during school hours, so it’s a great opportunity for everyone to participate and not have to travel in order to take part in this virtual event.

I’m really excited and I believe it will be a great event – we are working plans to host a virtual career fair at 3DEXPERIENCE World.”

Marie – thank you for speaking with us and sharing your passion for engineering! 

See you at 3DEXPERIENCE World

We are excited to be attending and sponsoring 3DEXPERIENCE World 2021! 

Keep up to date with the latest information and registration details our events page.

Last week we were excited to host the first-ever DriveWorks Drivers virtual meeting! 

DriveWorks Drivers First Ever Virtual Meeting 

Split into two Microsoft Teams meetings, the first DriveWorks Drivers networking event took place at 3pm GMT and the second took place at 9pm GMT. 

During the 3pm GMT meeting, we were excited to be joined by 57 DriveWorks users and 33 DriveWorks users in the 9pm GMT meeting.

It was great to welcome so many enthusiastic DriveWorks users to share and connect.

Here’s just some of them!

Introductions

Attendees were first welcomed by Heather and Bridie from the DriveWorks team.

With Bridie set up at DriveWorks HQ in our Thelwall offices and Heather joining us from her home office in the US, the meeting began.

After some initial introductions and some tips for the meeting, Bridie and Heather welcomed DriveWorks CEO, Glen Smith and DriveWorks VP and Co-Founder, Maria Sarkar.

Technical Updates, Networking and Much More

The aim of DriveWorks Drivers is to create a space for DriveWorks users to share DriveWorks knowledge, ideas and connect with each other.

Whilst all DriveWorks Drivers meetings will be user-led, for the first meeting Glen started the meeting with an update from the DriveWorks team.

Glen gave an update on our latest release, one that we are all extremely proud of – DriveWorks 18.1!

Glen was then joined by DriveWorks Applications Engineer, Ollie to discuss all of the hard work the DriveWorks team has put into this latest release.

It was a great opportunity for attendees to get involved and learn more about our technical team, including their favourite parts of DriveWorks 18.1.

During the meeting, we were also joined by the newest member of the DriveWorks team, Adam. Adam shared his experience with DriveWorks and what he achieved in his previous role working at a company implementing DriveWorks.

As well as lots of exciting conversations taking place, we also tested our customer’s and reseller’s DriveWorks knowledge with a special DriveWorks quiz!

Guest Presenters 

We know how important it is for DriveWorks users to share ideas and tips with each other.

Customer presentations will be a big part of all DriveWorks Drivers meetings. We were extremely excited to welcome our first DriveWors Drivers guest presenters.

Robert Allen – Dolphin Solutions 

During the 3pm meeting, we were joined by Robert Allen, ‎Product Design Engineer at UK based DriveWorks customer, Dolphin Solutions.

Dolphin Solutions have implemented a DriveWorks configurator that anyone can use, from members of the sales team all the way to architects from all over the world.

Robert shared how since using DriveWorks, Dolphin Solutions have been able to cut their design time down from a matter of days to weeks to minutes and hours.

Drawings that used to have to be created manually are now automatically created by SOLIDWORKS and DriveWorks working together.

Ismael Lopez – VanAire

During the 9pm GMT meeting, we were joined by Ismael Lopez, CAD Administrator at VanAire, based in Michigan.

Ismael has attended DriveWorks World for many years, events both in the US and the UK.

During his presentation, Ismael spoke about how VanAire has used DriveWorks to create their configurator for some of their parts.

It was a great opportunity to hear about the history of VanAire and how they have adapted DriveWorks into their designs.

What’s Next?

We were delighted to welcome so many DriveWorks users to the first DriveWorks Drivers virtual networking meeting.

It was great to see everyone interacting and talking all things DriveWorks.

We will be hosting four DriveWorks Drivers events each year, with the next one scheduled for March 2021.

If you would like to register your interest for the next event, please get in touch with us.

Last week we were excited to host the first-ever DriveWorks Drivers virtual meeting! 

DriveWorks Drivers First Ever Virtual Meeting 

Split into two Microsoft Teams meetings, the first DriveWorks Drivers networking event took place at 3pm GMT and the second took place at 9pm GMT. 

During the 3pm GMT meeting, we were excited to be joined by 57 DriveWorks users and 33 DriveWorks users in the 9pm GMT meeting.

It was great to welcome so many enthusiastic DriveWorks users to share and connect.

Here’s just some of them!

Introductions

Attendees were first welcomed by Heather and Bridie from the DriveWorks team.

With Bridie set up at DriveWorks HQ in our Thelwall offices and Heather joining us from her home office in the US, the meeting began.

After some initial introductions and some tips for the meeting, Bridie and Heather welcomed DriveWorks CEO, Glen Smith and DriveWorks VP and Co-Founder, Maria Sarkar.

Technical Updates, Networking and Much More

The aim of DriveWorks Drivers is to create a space for DriveWorks users to share DriveWorks knowledge, ideas and connect with each other.

Whilst all DriveWorks Drivers meetings will be user-led, for the first meeting Glen started the meeting with an update from the DriveWorks team.

Glen gave an update on our latest release, one that we are all extremely proud of – DriveWorks 18.1!

Glen was then joined by DriveWorks Applications Engineer, Ollie to discuss all of the hard work the DriveWorks team has put into this latest release.

It was a great opportunity for attendees to get involved and learn more about our technical team, including their favourite parts of DriveWorks 18.1.

During the meeting, we were also joined by the newest member of the DriveWorks team, Adam. Adam shared his experience with DriveWorks and what he achieved in his previous role working at a company implementing DriveWorks.

As well as lots of exciting conversations taking place, we also tested our customer’s and reseller’s DriveWorks knowledge with a special DriveWorks quiz!

Guest Presenters 

We know how important it is for DriveWorks users to share ideas and tips with each other.

Customer presentations will be a big part of all DriveWorks Drivers meetings. We were extremely excited to welcome our first DriveWors Drivers guest presenters.

Robert Allen – Dolphin Solutions 

During the 3pm meeting, we were joined by Robert Allen, ‎Product Design Engineer at UK based DriveWorks customer, Dolphin Solutions.

Dolphin Solutions have implemented a DriveWorks configurator that anyone can use, from members of the sales team all the way to architects from all over the world.

Robert shared how since using DriveWorks, Dolphin Solutions have been able to cut their design time down from a matter of days to weeks to minutes and hours.

Drawings that used to have to be created manually are now automatically created by SOLIDWORKS and DriveWorks working together.

Ismael Lopez – VanAire

During the 9pm GMT meeting, we were joined by Ismael Lopez, CAD Administrator at VanAire, based in Michigan.

Ismael has attended DriveWorks World for many years, events both in the US and the UK.

During his presentation, Ismael spoke about how VanAire has used DriveWorks to create their configurator for some of their parts.

It was a great opportunity to hear about the history of VanAire and how they have adapted DriveWorks into their designs.

What’s Next?

We were delighted to welcome so many DriveWorks users to the first DriveWorks Drivers virtual networking meeting.

It was great to see everyone interacting and talking all things DriveWorks.

We will be hosting four DriveWorks Drivers events each year, with the next one scheduled for March 2021.

If you would like to register your interest for the next event, please get in touch with us.

DriveWorks World 2021 – Save the Date

The annual technical training event for DriveWorks users.

Join us virtually:

April 20th-21st 2021

To register your interest and sign up for updates, please get in contact with us by emailing us at events@driveworks.co.uk

Marie Planchard – Senior Director, Education and Early Engagement, SOLIDWORKS

Many of us have heard the phrase “Find a job you enjoy doing, and you will never have to work a day in your life”, and we believe Marie Planchard is proving just that.

Anyone that spends time with Marie learns pretty quickly that she shares just as much passion for SOLIDWORKS as she does for education.

Starting with her early days of teaching CAD at Mass Bay College to being a ‘regular’ on the main stage at SOLIDWORKS World for almost 15 years, she has always considered herself to be an ‘engineering and education advocate’.

Recently, we had a chance to sit down with Marie (virtually of course) and get to know a bit more about her early years, education, being a woman in engineering and what brought her to work for SOLIDWORKS.

Marie, I’m sure many people reading this may already know you but can you please give us just a little background on where you are from and your education?

“I’m happy to share some of my story. Starting when I was a little girl on my grandfather’s farm (outside Buffalo) or in my dad’s automotive shop in upstate New York (Utica), I’ve always loved learning about how things work.

In that part of the country, winters can be quite long and there was lots of time to fix equipment, design new things, or think of ways to make things work better. I consider myself fortunate to have grown up in an environment that was very supportive of my early dreams of becoming an engineer.

My education journey started in Massachusetts where I attended Northeastern University; that is where I met my husband David (Planchard). We moved to New Jersey and I attended Rutgers University where I received my Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering.

We ended up back in Massachusetts and that’s where I attended Worcester Polytechnic Institute to complete my Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering.”

Tell us about the path that lead you to SOLIDWORKS.

“While I was attending Rutgers, a new technology was being introduced called Computer-Aided Design – CAD.

As someone interested in design and engineering, this sparked my interest and imagination.

At the time, I was fortunate to work for a start-up that had roots in Massachusetts. Through this position, I had the chance to get to know folks working in CAD through tech support.

When I found my way back to Massachusetts, I worked for a company supporting customers in CAD and I loved it.

I loved helping customers learn and it was an integral part of the Medusa user group.

Over time and through working in different roles ranging from designing parts and equipment to working in Robotics and Laboratory Automation, I felt like something was missing.

It was at that point early on that I realized that I wanted to be an educator.

When I started teaching at Massachusetts Bay College, we were teaching students the CAD tool Pro/Engineer (Pro-E).

It was challenging for students to learn and pick up on quickly as it had a UNIX interface.

When we learned about SOLIDWORKS in 1997, there were several things that impressed me right away.”

“SOLIDWORKS had a Windows interface and it installed with just 1 CD. The key thing for me was how easy it was to teach and for students to understand.

At the end of my 1^st lesson, students were already modelling in SOLIDWORKS with minimal instruction.

At a meeting with the dean of the department, I said, ‘we have to switch and teach this software more intensely – it may not be big yet, but we need to invest in this software solution’.

It was an exciting time, and I was really pleased to see students learning this new CAD.

It was during this time that I started the New England SOLIDWORKS User Group which I ran until I was hired by SOLIDWORKS in 2005.”

(The New England SWUG turned into the Western Mass SWUG, Boston SWUG and Connecticut SWUG)

How many years have you worked at SOLIDWORKS?

“By the year 2005, I had already worked with SOLIDWORKS as a customer, user group leader and a partner (with husband David, they created ‘hands-on test drive’ training materials and other SOLIDWORKS curriculum being used by customers to achieve certifications).

It was in 2005 that SOLIDWORKS hired me as the Director of Education. While many have moved on, there are several members of the team are still with me, namely Chris Morse.

Chris and I have worked together since the beginning.”

How many SOLIDWORKS Worlds have you attended?

“I’ve attended SOLIDWORKS World (and 3DEXPERIENCE World) a total of 17 times. My first 2 events were as a customer and the other 15 were as a SOLIDWORKS employee.”

You know what’s coming next, we have to ask – which event has been your favourite?

“Without a doubt, SOLIDWORKS World 2012 in San Diego was my favourite. While both times we have been in San Diego were great, the 1^st time we were there in 2012 is by far the one that stands out the most.

It was the first time I’d attended a conference at a convention centre that was so beautifully set, with the harbour on one side and the gas lamp district on the other. The USS Midway is there and that really had a big impact on me to look out upon it in the harbour.

As a little girl, I remember my father talking about the USS Midway and the history of the battle. Recalling my father’s pride in telling me that story and now being here amongst design engineers and doing something that I love really bridged that connection back to him.”

Everyone has a favourite keynote speaker from SOLIDWORKS World, who is yours?

“There have been so many great speakers over the years, but for me, I would have to say that Leland Melvin was a speaker that really made an impact on me with his story.

At SOLIDWORKS World 2019 in Dallas, Texas, I had the opportunity to meet and shake hands with him ahead of the morning General Session.

Listening to his story and learning how he took life’s setbacks and tragedies and turned them into an opportunity was just amazing.

His message and personal efforts to promote the education of young people in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math is admirable – but he also conveys a strong message to be a good human being!

As a dog person, I loved the story and photos of him posing with his dogs at NASA.

After meeting him and hearing him speak, I have made sure to follow his work and activities on social media.

He continues to be a great motivator and advocate for STEM and education in general.

It was truly an honour to have met him and listened to his words.”

Part 2

It was a pleasure speaking to Marie, learning more about her background and how she started her journey with SOLIDWORKS.

Learn more about Marie and her vision for the future of the SOLIDWORKS Education Community in Part 2 coming soon!

A Successful November For the DriveWorks Mo’s

We posted at the beginning of November to say that 18 of our team were taking part in Movember this year.

Movember involves growing a moustache during the month of November to raise awareness of men’s health issues.

Movember fund thousands of men’s health programmes, find out about the causes Movember supports on their website.

Members of the DriveWorks team have taken part in Movember for the past few years.

This year though there were more people taking part than ever before so they set themselves an ambitious target of raising more than ever before!

After 30 days of growing the mo’s were looking pretty good, and so was their fundraising – this year, they have raised over £2000!

See their journeys on the DW Mo’s team page.

DW Mo’s Team

Well done everyone for raising money for such a great cause and thank you to everyone who helped the team exceed their target by donating and supporting!

See the before and after photos below!

Day 1

Day 18

Day 30

SOLIDWORKS Largest User Group Meeting Ever (SLUGME)

Five years ago, Todd Blacksher had the vision to create an event that would connect friends and colleagues across the SOLIDWORKS Community.

At the time, Todd was the leader of the SOLIDWORKS User Group of Nebraska. Using his network connections, he planted the seed of an idea for a global user group meeting.

Why not get every SOLIDWORKS User Group in the world to participate in the largest meeting of it’s kind?

He quickly partnered with a few other leaders and they got to work planning the first SOLIDWORKS Largest User Group Meeting Ever (SLUGME).

1st Annual Event

In December of 2016, the 1^st Annual SOLIDWORKS Largest User Group Meeting Ever (SLUGME) was held.

SOLIDWORKS CEO, Gian Paolo Bassi, attended and gave the welcoming remarks.

Over 50 SOLIDWORKS user groups from around the world participated (1,000 users) – some as far away as Australia and India.

Over 200 pizzas were consumed globally during the meeting!

Since that inaugural event, there has been a “Largest User Group Meeting” held every year and the momentum has not stopped.

Over the years, the event has continued to grow, with SWUGN members from around the world coming together at a specific date and time each year. 

There is still interest to connect and engage with each other in between larger events.

Who would have thought that five years ago the idea of a ‘virtual’ user group meeting would become the standard for 2020?

On November 17th, user groups from around the globe joined together once again virtually for the 5^th Annual SOLIDWORKS Largest User Group Meeting Ever (SLUGME 5).

Kam Smith, user group leader for the Aberdeen Proving Ground SWUG, hosted the evening.

We were all treated to two dynamic presenters and SOLIDWORKS ‘power users’ – Eric Beatty and Ed Eaton.

Eric gave an insightful overview into how OMAX is using both SOLIDWORKS and the 3DEXPERIENCE Platform in their designs.

Ed Eaton helped users understand how they can best address Design Tree Errors with this “Trees of Blood” presentation.

DriveWorks has enjoyed being a sponsor for this event for the last 5 years.

Cheers to all of the SOLIDWORKS User Group Leaders who have made this event successful over the last 5 fives – and here’s to many more!

Supporting SWUG

With the support of our resellers, customers and partners, we have attended lots of SWUG meetings, sponsored meetings and helped group leaders to find presenters with interesting presentations since 2015.

We love being a part of the SOLIDWORKS Community and look forward to continuing to support the SOLIDWORKS User Group Network.

If you would like us to sponsor your group, get in touch and tell us about your meetings!

HW Ventilation, based in Rescaldina Italy is a leading company in the ventilation and air movement systems industry.

They design, produce and sell axial impellers and ventilators for industrial use. This includes engine cooling systems, compressors, industrial plants and HVAC systems.

Automatically Generated 2D Drawing created using DriveWorks Solo

Designing Before DriveWorks

Before implementing DriveWorks, their lengthy design process required an engineer to draw every new product or variation of an existing product from scratch inside SOLIDWORKS.

Automating the Design Process

Automating this process now enables them to quickly draw 3D models of any type of fan, based on a set of standard variables, such as blade and hub types, fan diameter, material and colour rotation.

The DriveWorks Solo project also automatically generates brand new SOLIDWORKS files and manufacturing data, such as bills of materials and 2D drawings, based on each individual form input.

When describing the time savings achieved with DriveWorks Solo, Ing. Morlacchi, the main DriveWorks user at HW Ventilation says:

“Our design process using DriveWorks Solo is 10 times faster than our previous manual process. Our engineers also don’t have to waste time making drawings, and instead can focus their time on more rewarding projects.”

Responding to Customer Demand

Implementing DriveWorks Solo has enabled HW Ventilation to respond to customer demand faster and with more efficiency, as they now spend a lot less time drawing the same but different designs.

Their customers now receive a drawing of the product they require almost instantly, and personalised quotes are sent out much quicker.

Future Plans

Having achieved their target of reducing engineering time spent on repetitive and low value-add activities, HW Ventilation are looking to the future of what they can accomplish with DriveWorks.

Ing. Morlacchi says that their next step will be to scale up their current DriveWorks Solo projects to DriveWorks Pro and implement an online configurator that will enable their customers

AMCA 210 Test Chamber

“HW Ventilation are looking to the future of what they can accomplish with DriveWorks.”

Download and Use DriveWorks Solo Free for 30 Days

Follow the 3 easy steps below to download the DriveWorks Solo 30 Day Free Trial and see what time savings you can achieve.

Automate SOLIDWORKS Parts, Assemblies and Drawings.

Save time, reduce errors and innovate more.

Read Glen’s Software Updates Feature in November’s DEVELOP3D Magazine

In this month’s DEVELOP 3D magazine, DriveWorks CEO Glen Smith talks about software updates: When you should go for it when you should hold back, and how you should decide which version is the ‘right’ version for your organisation.

This is part of a series of articles by Glen that will be featured every month in the DEVELOP3D magazine.

In the November edition of DEVELOP3D, Glen talks about the importance of software updates and the risk if software is not kept up to date.

Glen explains the problems and risks that come with using outdated software. Drawing on the NHS Tack and Trace programme in the UK as an example, Glen points out what can go wrong when using old, unsupported file formats and the best practice to avoid this.

“Using an old, unsupported file format doesn’t just risk data loss, as we’ve seen here. It can also be a massive security risk.”

“Software and hardware may be updated regularly with shiny new features to draw us in, but the security improvements they contain are often even more important.”

“It’s about making an educated decision. If a new version has features that will save you time, then upgrade it.”

DEVELOP3D Magazine is free to read online, read the full article on page 17.

A New Way of Connecting DriveWorks Users From Around the World

Sharing technical know-how and practical experience informally with each other is something we know many people using DriveWorks would like to do. It’s certainly always worked well at DriveWorks World.
However as DriveWorks World is only once a year, we’ve decided to use technology to set up a new digital event to help you all connect more often and without the need to travel.

We’re excited to introduce you to – DriveWorks Drivers.

This is an opportunity to connect with DriveWorks users from around the world, share ideas and talk DriveWorks!

Virtual Networking Meetings

We’re aiming for 4 meetings per year, and we hope you’ll join us at the first one to help shape them going forward. The meetings aim to connect DriveWorks Users from around the world, invite guest speakers to share experience,s and encourage questions and dialogue about the technology.

These virtual networking meetings will be hosted by us, as a value add for people using DriveWorks Solo or Pro who have an active subscription.

We will also welcome authorized Applications Engineers from our VARs with a DriveWorks focus, who can contribute to the conversations too.

The first DriveWorks Drivers virtual networking meeting will take place on Thursday 10th December.

We’ll be releasing more information closer to the event, but please register your interest by getting in touch with us.

We can’t wait to welcome you at the first meeting!

The DriveWorks Team Begin Their Movember Journey

For the past few years, members of the DriveWorks team have taken part in Movember.

This year more of the team are taking part than ever before, 18 of our team are giving it a go!

Movember involves growing a moustache during the month of November to raise awareness of men’s health issues.

Movember fund thousands of men’s health programmes, find out about the causes Movember supports on their website.

Check back here for updates on this year’s moustache and fundraising journeys…

See who is taking part, track their progress and support the cause via our Team page.

Our DW Mo’s

Day 30

Track their Progress

See who is taking part, follow the team’s progress and support the cause via our Movember Team Page.