As a Founding Member of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) G3 Tech Partnership, we'll be speaking at The Amsterdam Conference on Sustainability and Reporting. Our presentation will show how XBRL technology is enhancing the future of sustainability reporting.

We have embarked on our own 2005/06 sustainability report, which will document how we've grown local community outreach to balance the work we've done helping multinational corporations communicate their challenges and achievements in sustainability. The report will be available early 2007.

There has been much news around XBRL in the United States. The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has made a $54 million investment in XBRL, and the US jurisdiction of the XBRL International Consortium we belong to has become a private corporation, XBRL US, Inc. See our 3BL™ blog for all the news surrounding these recent developments.

Upcoming XBRL events to which Plan A will contribute include the XBRL International Conference in Philadelphia beginning on December 4, and the NIRI-Chicago December 7 event, titled "New Standards in Communicating to Financial Audiences: XBRL and Proposed SEC Regulations on Disclosure".

Lastly, on November 2, the NIRI-Chicago chapter will host their Annual Report Roundtable and Designer Showcase, where participants will explore the latest annual report trends, issues and best practices. Immediately following this morning session, judges from NIRI-Chicago, the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) and DePaul University will unveil this year's Top-10 Midwest annual reports as Triad Award winners.

September marks the arrival of the annual NIRI-Chicago Chapter IR Workshop. Designed to help IR professionals stay current with the very latest trends and best practices, the full-day event will cover a range of subjects relevant to the business of Plan A. We'll be on hand to learn, network, and provide insight into the changes ahead for 21st century corporate reporting. The importance of developing investor relations communication with a global reach by creating online quarterly and annual reports, and understanding the potential impact of new technologies like XBRL were hot topics at the NIRI annual conference in San Diego this past June. The conversation will likely encompass this and much more.

In October we'll head back to Europe for The Amsterdam Conference on Sustainability and Transparency which will feature the release of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) G3 Guidelines. This is an internationally recognized framework for reporting on non-financial key performance indicators that we reference when producing CSR communication and triple bottom line reports for ourselves and our clients. Anthony Vagnetti will give a presentation on behalf of the G3 Tech Partnership, of which Plan A is a founding member. He'll show how XBRL technology can be used to add quantifiable value to online corporate and public agency sustainability reports.

On July 18, we're moderating a panel discussion on corporate social responsibility and communication hosted by PRSA-Chicago, our local chapter of the Public Relations Society of America.

Anthony Vagnetti will toss-out stimulating questions to the panelists, and facilitate Q&A with the audience of around 100 mid- and senior-level PR and marketing professionals. The panel will include a representative from Fleishman Hillard, Barbara Talisman, Director of Development for Chicago Cares, and Jeff Terry, Senior Manager of Corporate Commitments and Strategic Relationships from Whirlpool.

July will also mark the completion of two important documents authored by Plan A.

We're producing a detailed guidance document on the process of sustainability reporting, which is in great demand. This will include important references from both the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD).

Secondly, the prospectus for our online corporate reporting solution, 3BL™, has been edited by several renowned Gartner analysts, and will be available as part of a larger recurring engagement with CFOs and IROs in the US Midwest as we roll-out our complete annual report consulting, design and production offerings for 2006.

When we're finished in Spain, it's on to Amsterdam for the kickoff meeting of the GRI G3 tech partnership. The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) has called on Plan A and 9 other companies to help define best practices and develop online sustainability reporting solutions. This expert group is the newly convened G3 Tech Partnership, and seeks to create an efficient, user-friendly technology-based interface between the GRI and its multiple constituencies. As well as directly influencing how GRI's technological platform develops, we are adopting a long-term leadership position by working with GRI to embed sustainability reporting solutions into their own products.

To wrap-up our month on tour, we'll send a team to the National Investor Relations Institute (NIRI) annual conference in San Diego, CA. We'll be pulling the cover off of 3BL™, the second generation of our online business reporting system there, and will meet with the Board of Directors of NIRI-Chicago to finalize a partnership to redesign their website.

On April 1, at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management we heard Dean Dipak Jain and leaders in business and academia like Bill White and Bob Langert explore the intersection of business and values; how individuals can help their organization recognize and do 'the right thing'. The event focused specifically on how businesses tend to think and make decisions about issues affecting the environment and sustainability. On April 2, Network for Evanston's Future, a grassroots organization that consists of five local groups that address key issues like renewable energy, affordable housing and transportation alternatives hosted Steve Cohen from the Portland, Oregon Office of Sustainable Development. The public forum shared information about effective municipal initiatives to help Evanston grow increasingly prosperous and sustainable.

Lastly, we're spending this week in Oakland, California at the 2006 Ceres Conference. Ceres is a national network of investment funds, environmental organizations and other public interest groups working to advance environmental stewardship on the part of businesses. Ceres asks corporations to report on sustainability according to the guidelines of the global reporting initiative (GRI). Plan A helps both government agencies and multinational corporations understand and adopt GRI reporting principles, define and engage stakeholder groups, build reporting frameworks and deliver verifiable, useable economic, environmental and social performance information. To learn more, visit www.livingsustainability.com.

Steve Perkins who is facilitating Network for Evanston's Future, is a leader at the Center for Neighborhood Technology, and will work together with Ruchika Mehra, Blake Lewis, and the rest of the Plan A team to reach CNT's goal of developing " Strategies for Livable Communities."

With each one of us working towards a sustainable future, Plan A is stepping-up, building partnerships, contributing towards attaining the goals of sustainability and taking every measure to make our community a greener place to live in.

Taking full advantage of Vagnetti's enrollment in Loyola University's MBA program, Plan A will attend a lecture titled "The Market for Virtue: The Potential and Limits of Corporate Social Responsibility" offered by David Vogel, Professor of Business Ethics at UC Berkeley. This will accelerate and refine our position as we prepare for the Ceres 2006 Conference in Oakland, CA next month, where we will discuss sustainable corporate governance with environmentally - and socially-conscious executive and investors from around the world.

On March 16, Anthony Vagnetti will speak alongside Dan Roberts of Grant Thornton and Sanjay Basu of CoreFiling at a lunch seminar hosted by Business Wire in Chicago. The seminar will discuss the strategic impact of XBRL, and the growing regulatory emphasis on financial reporting online. Vagnetti's contribution will highlight our utilization of new technologies and communication models that bring substantive benefits to online business reporting. Specifically, he'll share information about the features and benefits of webAR, our XBRL-powered online reporting application.

To remain on the leading edge, Vagnetti will attend a training seminar at the AICPA facilities in New York on March 29 and 30, where leaders will offer the latest developments in SEC compliant XBRL instance document creation, and show how to use intelligent interactive data to automate some costly and inefficient steps in financial accounting and reporting process.

Confused? Don't worry, he'll be asked to put it all in layperson's term by April 1st. No fooling.

Inspired by his vision of technology projects for national parks or the Smithsonian - and prepped by the rigors of applying and receiving entrance for his daughter to kindergarten at a local Catholic school - Ejaz has driven our team mercilessly for over two years, extracting case studies and demanding Gantt charts. Our financial records are impeccable; our policies and procedures are in place; we can price our services and estimate our workflow by the book.

Congratulations to everyone here who worked so hard to make this happen - and great thanks to Ejaz whose determination and unflagging optimism have brought us success. Hail to the Chief.

Their journey through Louisiana and Mississippi, the stories they heard and the things they saw as they captured experiences of Unitrin agents and customers are heart-wrenching and uplifting all at once. More grief and more devastation has not been leveled upon that part of the country in living memory.

As it did last year, the condition of our world seems vulnerable as we wrap up 2005. In our company, we are fortunate that we and our families have been spared what many have endured. But we make friends as we go out in the service of clients, so the challenges facing the Unitrin people Anthony met now engage him personally.

When I visited on Friday, the store was a jungle of green with delivery guys carrying in boxes of blooms and leaves and the Bloom3 team creating dramatic, romantic designs and loading up their truck with military precision. One would not be surprised if they ran out of steam and sent so-so designs to Plan A this a.m., exhausted by the demands of the weekend.

However, Bloom3 did not break stride. They devoted the same energy, care and creativity to a small assignment for Plan A that they did for a large, highly visible retail client. They remind us that true professionalism means delivering the same excellence of design and service to every customer, every time, and never hinting that you would rather have stayed in bed. The Bloom3 brand is a rose among mugworts.

This effort has been part of our initiative to develop a triple bottom line practice. Even though most U.S. companies are still reporting only on their financial performance and governance, with small nods to the "intangibles," we feel confident that the trend to reporting environmental impact and social responsibility will grow in this country.

If you want to learn more about what's going on in the world of triple bottom line reporting, there is some good basic info at LivingSustainability.com and links to appropriate sites. See you there.

If the words "triple bottom line" don't make your heart beat fast, trust us, they will. Just when you thought you couldn't possibly have more to think about than financial reporting and investor relations, the intangibles are coming into play. Environmental performance and corporate citizenship efforts are interesting investors and analysts. Visit Plan A at NIRI and sort it all out.

We hope to see Ruth Venning and Bill Parke, and of course Eric Sodorff, and maybe Rich Roeske and Frank Sodaro, and even Lynn McHugh and that nice Greg Klaben. And you.

When investor relations professionals dream, they go to the first NIRI event of the back-to-school season, but they are probably much better organized than I. This year, Plan A will associate-sponsor the 2005 NIRI Chicago IR workshop taking place Friday, September 16. Savvy IR professionals will hear a former SEC chairman talk about corporate governance and will discuss the latest trends and IR news.

Plan A will be introducing our triple bottom line practice which we call Living Sustainability. We'll show attendees our new web site, LivingSustainability.com and will also catch up with colleagues and clients. Hope to see you there on September 16. For information, go to niri-chicago.org.

Our design strategist in Seoul, Korea says it's monsoon season over there. And our green research designer reports the same torrential rains in Delhi, India. My cousin-in-law is living in Karachi (hometown of Ejaz Syed, our founder, information strategist) but missed that killer heat wave because she was vacationing in the Seychelles. Weather is global for us here, no matter if it is warming, raining or snowing Chicago-style.

There's a saying here that if you don't like the weather in Chicago (and Evanston is a short L-ride away), wait five minutes. If we at Plan A don't like the weather, we just ask our team members what's going on in their neighborhoods, and everything falls into perspective.

Ejaz will be paying special attention to the Enterprise IT State of the Union. This session addresses how industry-leading companies use Apple technology to solve challenges in database, storage and high performance computing with standards-based network infrastructure.

The biggest challenge for our information strategist (Ejaz Syed) will then be to come back to Plan A and teach some of us what that means.

The Apple conference is from June 6 through 10, so if you are planning to be there, look for Ejaz Syed from Plan A in Evanston. He's the smart IT guru in the bowtie. Oh, wait, they're all smart...

Our Bennison's preference? We were on quite a coffeecake binge for a while, but now dabble in the red velvet cake and various tortes. Founder Bill McDowell had a custom designed Plan A birthday cake not too long ago - and the recent award makes us all the more eager to support our neighbors with frequent purchasing sessions.

It's so nice to see goodness rewarded, as well as excellence. Congratulations Bennison's and Jory Downer, master baker and oven Olympian extraordinaire. No hard feelings, France.

The Ceres conference was a fascinating event with sessions on sustainable development, climate change, corporate citizenship and responsibility and the Global Reporting Initiative. We at Plan A in Evanston are newcomers to the Ceres organization, but after our second year of working with Motorola on their global citizenship report, we are sold on the concept and want to know more.

The next few months are going to be intensive study and strategy time for us as we begin our own reporting initiative. Our learnings will be posted here at PlanA.com and we'll be talking with all our clients and partners about what they are doing. Everyone, please let me know if you read anything about Lamborghini going to biofuel. Till then, I'll be riding the CTA Red Line. --Gretchen

Plan A Evanston
This is merely a test and not scientific. We at Plan A Evanston will be searching like crazy to see if we move up on the search pages. So, colleagues, search for Plan A Evanston and see what you find.

Best wishes from Gretchen at Plan A in Evanston.

On St. Patrick's Day, as we feel the increasingly irresistible pull of the corned beef at Nevin's Pub, our diverse team has few true Irish genes, but that will not stop us from a celebratory lunch. To all friends of Plan A, we wish happy camaraderie - and don't fall off the float. -- G. Effler, grandaughter of Marie Magdalen Kennelly of Blackwell's Island, New York and, previously, Killarney.

Joining Ceres has been a goal ever since we worked with the folks at Motorola on their 2003 Global Corporate Citizenship Report. They were patient as we went through the learning curve on this burgeoning area of reporting, and the result was a dynamic, thought-provoking print (and Web) communication that highlights environmental, social and governance goals and performance around the world.

For more information about CERES and the companies who are walking the talk, or whatever you call it when you actually try to live by the principles you espouse, go to www.ceres.org and look around. And maybe we'll see you at the conference in April.

Women who are into fashion know an astonishing number of ways to say reddish-orange, most of them coined by catalog marketers. Men outside the design profession don't know many colors, except the ones that pertain to car finishes or sports teams. Candy apple red. Big orange. On the weekends my husband wears a sweater he thinks is burgundy, but is rather a dusty magenta. It's the most outrageous thing he owns.

A few years ago Crayola set out to retire a few crayons and make room for new, contemporary shades. The fans of 'burnt umber' were outraged. They organized, petitioned and eventually won their case. The favorite crayon of Boomers and their progeny lives on, though 'flesh' was rightfully abandoned. Whose flesh? What country?
Hoping you are in the pink...

As the Plan A team embarks on Motorola's 2004 Global Corporate Citizenship report, we are highly tuned in to the environmental efforts made by clients, by American businesses and by ourselves as individuals. We generate so much trash and waste in this country. Sometimes it seems that the positive behavior of an individual means nothing.

Then, however, we think about Tolstoy, and the great thing he said (in Russian of course, so this is a translation): "Everybody wants to change the world. But no one wants to change himself." So, if I make a change, myself, and if we each help our colleagues and families to make changes, it still is a start. And we have to start. Thanks, Leo.

Our greeting is not a design tour de force. We are capable of humor and complexity, but this did not seem the time. This year more than any other, the instinct is toward simplicity. And quiet.

Some of our team are traveling. Some of us have family coming home. We say good bye cautiously, knowing that the whole world can change in an instant. Our wish for each other, and for all of you, is - peace.