InnovaScapes Institute vs AstroVirtual Inc.

 Ah, yes, a number of friends have told me --confusing.  Are you still doing InnovaScapes, or is your attention now on AstroVirtual?

And the answer is YES.    But even my AstroVirtual partner seems a bit confused.  So let me try to explain.

AstroVirtual is a 'for profit' company, although to date it has operated in a non-yet-profitable mode.  AVI has designed a number of 'multi-screen environments' that are suitable for displaying many virtual large-screens, each of which is inter-active within itself.  The set of multiple screens are simultaneously shown.  AVI designs, produces, and delivers these environments for clients who want to feature a series of simultaneous displays for their customers.   Imagine that you 'sell' access to all of the March Madness basketball games simultaneously, or all of the nation's NCAA football games on any October Saturday.  

AVI's environments give you ways to show all of these.  You could simulate a Las Vegas betting room, or a Fox Sports Multi-Channel.  Instead of switching your TV from channel to channel to see different games, you watch all of them simultaneously on an AVI diorama.    

AVI licenses the environment to you, along with a modest annual maintenance contract.   Your task is to select the content you want to display, and either load it yourself (AVI will teach you how to do this), or hire a content team to do it for you (AVI also will contract to do this for you, but it is not our main business).  And then, your task is to advertise your offering, and deliver this montage of pictures and interactive screens to your customers.   You might use these environments to build a business 'war-room' or a Situation Center, or altenatively, you might build a local Health Observatory for your community, or a Historical Hall of Fame for your Service Club or local organization.

InnovaScapes Institute is a specialized research organization, which on occasion may be either a content provider for customers, or a content producer for either client or public consumption.   Projects have been quite varied over the years, including COPD and COVID studies, innovation drivers and enhancement tools, in-depth topical interviews such as historical figures in computer science, and creation and initial operation of institutional recognition programs.

I am the founder and CEO for InnovaScapes, operational since 1991.   I am also a co-founder and managing director for AstroVirtual, since 2023.   

The confusion, aside from the fact that I am involved in both orgaiznations, is that we have illustrated  some InnovaScapes research content on AstroVirtual prototypes, to stimulate potential clients to imagine how their own material might be used.

To the extent that a potential AVI client, or interested newcomer, might see some of these prototypes, it is not hard to see why a potential client might conclude that AVI is, say, a COVID research team, and miss the notion that AVI is content agnostic, and in fact doesn't offer any content for sale.

We can illustrate this with pictures, and maybe that would be a good idea for the next post.