We’ve just published our 200 th Driving Vision Newsletter! When I realised it, I caught my breath and dropped my pen. It’s quite a thing to look proudly back at what we’ve accomplished here—myself, my team, and the DVN community at large—all together since January 2008 when we published our 1 st DVN Newsletter. I called and checked with some of my friends in the lighting community if my satisfaction was simply a narcissistic and self-contentment reaction. I am pleased to report all of them cheerfully praised what I and DVN have been able to create so far: a lively, dynamic community despite all the obstacles which could have killed our initiative: tough competition, philosophical and nationalistic differences, or the economic crisis.
It has been a great pleasure building up our DVN lighting and DA community. I have always immensely enjoyed stepping over borders and sharing with my German, Austrian, Dutch, Scandinavian, French, Spanish, Italian, American, and Asian equals my passion for new technologies and the bright future of automotive lighting.
DVN has published over 50 DVN reports so far, on:
– Motor shows, Frankfurt, Tokyo, Detroit, Geneva, Paris .
– Congresses, ISAL , VISION, SAE, IQPC.
– Technologies, LED , Xenon, AFS, Adaptive lighting, DRLs .
– Regulations around the world.
– Lighting activities at car makers—Audi , PSA, next month , Mercedes-Benz.
– Lighting suppliers, Hella, AL, Valeo, Koito, ZKW and soon JW Speaker .
– Lighting in the US and China.
I’m also proud of our DVN workshops . The first one was at Stuttgart; this first event convinced us that the workshop is a great tool to help lighting players by sharing information, starting new relationships and reinforcing existing ones, and showing that we can maintain nice relationships, facilitate excellent communication while respecting hard competition. Later workshops at Paris gathered more people and convinced the attendees of the value in the fruitful day they spent. We are preparing the next workshop to take place in Detroit on the 10 th of January (during NAIAS) and all the DVN team is doing their best to make this event a big success. Please block the 10 th of January 2012 in your agenda. You don’t want to miss this.
I think this is the right time to thank all of you, all the 60 companies who have today entrusted me and joined this adventure as DVN Gold Members. I look forward to the pleasure of meeting you again at the forthcoming Detroit DVN workshop. Sincerely yours, onward to 300, 400 and beyond,
DVN General Editor