The future for Western Australia's virtual reality scene, and a brief lesson on strategy.

It's been 12 months since I last posted here, so there's a lot to cover.

As predicted, I neglected the blog and have failed to provide the weekly updates promised to you all. For that I apologise and can only say that I promise it won't happen again.

So where are things with me?

First things first:

Immersia Virtual Reality is now an ASIC-registered, fully operational business, with it's own vision, strategy, employees and clients. You can check out our online presence at Twitter.com/ImmersiaVR, Facebook.com/ImmersiaVR, or our website (long overdue an update and facelift) at ImmersiaVR.com.

I've also launched WAVR, acronym for Western Australian Virtual Reality Association.

Our first meeting is this Tuesday at 7pm at Bob's Bar in Perth (rooftop bar near the BHP Billiton tower) and I encourage all of you to attend if you are interested in virtual reality.

Here I run the risk of going offtrack, so I'll briefly discuss WAVR before getting back to Immersia.

The goal of WAVR is to make Western Australia's Virtual Reality community as strong as can be. After reaching out to my network and pitching at certain events, such as Spacecub3d, I found that a number of similar businesses to Immersia (such as Jupitech) actually exist in Perth, and there is so much potential for this fragmented market to form synergies and build an incredible community. We can host regular meetings, discussing the latest news and issues surrounding VR, training (Virtual Reality 101) and industry roadshows, including visits to universities.

Now let's return to Immersia.

I've actually taken a step back and had a look at what Immersia can truly be, and I think Immersia Enterprises Pty Ltd can be so much more than just a technology company 100% invested in VR. Long story short, I would prefer to invest in people and innovative ideas, and have the ability to play in several markets (currently looking into such concepts as starting up a record label, an events management company and a self managed superannuation fund, if the opportunities and people we invest in show enough potential).

Having said that, this blog is focussed on VR, so I will return to Immersia Virtual Reality.

What have we been up to at ImmersiaVR?

Lots of things.

I have 2 strategies to potentially turn this into a multi-bmillion(?) dollar company and I am currently executing both:

Strategy 1:

Build an extremely capable team in Perth, travel to investors, obtain investment, and commence operations. I've actually been unknowingly executing this strategy since I launched the company last year, hence the creation of a social media presence (Twitter.com/ImmersiaVR, Facebook.com/ImmersiaVR, ImmersiaVR.com, Instagram: ImmersiaVR a Linkedin company page and this blog). There is additional information that I could include here, relating to the concept of Hacker Houses, recruiting university students, crowd sourcing, and pitching to my networks overseas, but I'd prefer to go into more detail surrounding these actions another time.

Strategy 2:

Personally build an application in virtual reality (develop internal capability), launch on the Oculus Store, and market myself as a VR expert. This approach requires a significantly higher investment of my own time, as I have to teach myself how to use the tools behind VR apps (for example Unity or Unreal Engine) and re-learn the basic coding skills that I was taught during my engineering and computer science days. Having said that, there is one significant advantage to this approach: no matter how bad the final product performs on the Oculus Store, I will always be able to say that I built something from nothing in virtual reality. As such, when I am leading teams of technical experts, it should prove inspiring to even the freshest of recruits that their leader was once in her shoes. As such you can expect Immersia VR's first application (currently an African safari simulation) to be released on the 1st of August 2015.

So there you have it: Strategy 101.

Current state: Perth's VR scene could use a serious boost, and Immersia VR, while an incredible concept, needs to focus on delivering it's first product (release date 1 August 2015) while I go about building what I hope will be one of the largest virtual reality software development companies in the world. Target state: one of the strongest virtual reality communities in the world (and based out of the most isolated city in the world), and one of the largest application development companies on the planet.

I hope you enjoyed the read - it's great to be back online!

As always, if you would like to reach out to me, WAVR or Immersia please find contact details below:

Western Australian Virtual Reality Association or Immersia Virtual Reality:

Email adam@immersiavr.com, or visit Facebook.com/ImmersiaVR, or Twitter/Instagram @ImmersiaVR.

Me: Twitter: @AdamJGeoghegan, Instagram @AdamJamesGeoghegan, or Facebook.com/AdamJamesGeoghegan.

Thanks as always for your time and I look forward to meeting Perth's VR community at 7pm on Tuesday at Bob's Bar!

Best,

AG

Momentum

According to my high school physics teacher, Mr Hill, momentum is defined as the product of mass and velocity. Wikipedia uses the example of a large vehicle moving at great speed:

"A heavy truck moving quickly has a large momentum—it takes a large or prolonged force to get the truck up to this speed, and it takes a large or prolonged force to bring it to a stop afterwards. If the truck were lighter, or moving more slowly, then it would have less momentum."

The reason I started my second post with this concept is because momentum is something I've been thinking about a lot for the past week. On Friday I briefly considered how little progress I'd made on the Oculus over the last week and how difficult it would be to find content for my next blog post. Three days later I've made so much progress that I hardly know where to start. The key message - For this project (is that the appropriate term?) to be a success, I need to not only build and maintain a large amount of momentum, but also ensure that the heavy mass is moving with a high velocity in the right direction.

At this stage, I would consider the ideas and actions I have taken so far to be a small but considerable mass moving at variable velocity in a number of different directions.

Before I would continue, I would like to make sure that you, reader, have some understanding of what the Oculus Rift is. If you don't, please, PLEASE do yourself a favour and Wikipedia/Google "Oculus Rift". Watch a video or two. I honestly believe that this is the next stage for the human race, and will be comparable to the release of the wireless radio/television/computer/internet/mobile phone/smartphone/Facebook. If I really think about the range of possibilities that virtual reality opens up, I start to consider the fact that mankind can literally create an entire universe with this technology. The world will change forever when virtual reality becomes a household name.

Anyway, I digress. This post is centred around momentum, and the importance of ensuring that even if you have the best idea on Earth (a large mass), unless that mass is travelling in the right direction, the size does not matter because any momentum is wasted on random, chaotic movement that overall changes very little.

On the other hand - if I can sit down, brainstorm, focus on what I realistically think I can achieve with this thing, I believe that I myself can change the world for good. To say that my friends and I are passionate about the Oculus is an understatement. We have literally spent hours talking about the realm of possibilities and argued relentlessly about different directions we can take. I have had to leave the room or the club we are at because one or more of my best friends and I have had such a heated discussion that we need a break from each other. My girlfriend said today that there is a distinct possibility that she will go insane if she continues to  hear the word 'Oculus' in every second sentence. I don't need to explain any more that I am passionate about this technology - I'm sure you get it.

What I do need to explain, I think, is where I think I am going with this. And this is it: I am in the process of launching a company (name is top secret...for now) which has a vision that reads something like this:

"Company X" - Immersing clients in a better world by using virtual reality to create a new universe.

Tacky, I know. It definitely needs work. But the crux of the vision is there. "Company X" is an application development company. I would like to have a team of application developers that help me to create applications in virtual reality for clients. Clients can be anything from large oil and gas companies that want to create an innovative training platform to high net-wealth individuals that have an idea for a cool game. I have my own ideas for applications that I think can change the world and would like to get developers to invest some of their time working on my own nifty apps.

Anyway, I'm finding myself droning on a little bit too much about concepts and ideas, and I'd like to instead talk about some of the things that happened over the weekend that excite me.

With the exception of my second motorbike lesson on Saturday morning, I also caught up with Chris and Liam to spend an hour or two discussing where we think we are going with our own projects and how we can work together to make Perth the best city in Australia for Oculus-related activity. Among some heated but healthy conversations I discussed the business model that I just mentioned along with a number of other strategic ideas and concepts that I won't go into detail with here. The key message is that you can expect to hear and see a lot more from Chris, Liam and I over the coming months if you have any involvement with the technology, social media, gaming or (less likely) virtual reality industries in Perth. Expect to see a website or two coming soon. Any of my Twitter (https://twitter.com/adamjgeoghegan) or Instagram (instagram.com/instagegs) friends can expect to see a many more updates whenever I come across a quote, idea or image that I think is worth sharing.

On Sunday I hosted a BBQ for virtual reality developers to meet and discuss their own ideas and projects. Attendance was low (six showed up) but the discussions and outcomes were as good, if not better, than we could have expected from a higher rate of attendance. For me, the two key takeaways are to leverage existing companies and businesses more, and to start attending existing exhibitions and conferences that may be of relevance to what I am doing. There is no point in me trying to establish a new Virtual Reality community in this small city if there are already enough game/app developer communities to be leveraged. Furthermore, getting a stall set up at relevant expos (or just attending them generally) would be a great way for me to develop eminence in the Perth developer community.

As such, I'd like to finish on this note. If you would like to get involved with anything that I'm doing, please send me a message on Facebook (facebook.com/adamjamesgeoghegan) and I will get back to you as soon as I can. While I'm mainly looking for developers to help me get started on my first app, I can also really use some help with more general business activities - so anything including legal advice surrounding patents and employment law, tax advice, marketing and promotion etc would be of great benefit to me and if you find anything I'm saying interesting and are passionate enough to get involved, I will find some way to involve you.

We'll start by setting a direction and creating momentum.

- AG

Liam, Chris and I long before this whole thing began.

Me during my first motorbike lesson. Some momentum.

Missy taking a break during a morning jog. No Momentum.