Jim Channon

This article is a stub. You can help by expanding it.

Biographical Information

"Jim Channon was a Lieutenant Colonel in the United States Army. Most notably he is remembered for creating the First Earth Battalion manual. Jim Channon was featured in Fortune magazine as the business world's first corporate Shaman. He was featured in Omni and other magazines and websites as the founder of the Army's First Earth Battalion.

"Recognized worldwide as the original pioneer of the corporate visioning process, Jim Channon has been a trusted strategic designer for ten of the World's largest companies. He was the lead futurist and educational technologist for the U.S. Army. Jim has been described as a cross between Buckminster Fuller and Walt Disney. He created advanced visual AVL and the virtual reality exercise VRX. He has also done cultural voyaging with tribal groups worldwide. Presently his social architecture looks toward a new Pacific renaissance."

"Channon was a real combat commander in Vietnam who sought ways to make war dramatically less violent. Inspired by the ideas of advanced human performance and the human potential movement, he conceived of a new prototypical military force called ‘The First Earth Battalion.’ Using his skill as a strategic visionary artist, he introduced these breakthrough ideas in an illustrated 150-page field manual entitled Evolutionary Tactics published by the U.S. Army in 1978. “The manual was designed to have the look and feel of the ‘Whole Earth Catalogue’ which was popular at that time. It kick started a creativity movement in the army,” says Channon. “Post Vietnam was a time when the army needed a good dose of out-of-the-box thinking. Evolutionary Tactics and the First Earth Battalion were tools designed to help leaders imagine and develop extra-sensory modes of operation and more humane ways to approach warfare.”" [1]