It is really hard to believe that yet another 26 issues of The Green Sheet are complete with this story. As I sit here writing this last installment for 1997, I am happy to say that the year turned out to be a very productive one. We began the year as a six-page, 3,100-word, bi-weekly publication and ended the year as a sixteen-page publication with an average of 6,800 words per issue. While it is true that the new format has a good deal of advertising, it has paid and paved the way for more information for our readers in each issue.
We have dramatically improved the graphics and are now writing our own industry commentary through the stories and the cartoons in each issue. We were fortunate to be able to produce our third Check Study in 1997. As a result of our three 1997 corporate sponsorships (American National Bank of DeKalb County, Illinois; CrossCheck Inc.; and National Bank of the Redwoods, [NBR]) The Green Sheet has become the reliable source for payment systems information. The Green Sheet's United States Check Study has been distributed by a variety of banking and financial institutions including CoreStates Financial Corporation and the National Organization of Clearing Houses (NOCH). CoreStates presented the study to 200 university and college bursars at their Bursar, Cashier, and Treasury Management Conferences in 1996 and 1997, and NBR distributed the study to their commercial customers as well as Cash Management consultants.
Portions of The Green Sheet's Check Study are used daily in the specialized marketing materials of a variety of entities, including the nationally recognized magazine Collections & Credit Risk and NetStar Corporation's Electronic Checks at the Point of Sale, as well as by SCAN. The Study is also cited in Short-Term Financial Management: Text and Cases by Terry S. Manness and John T. Zietlow (The Dryden Press), a textbook used in colleges and universities as a primary reference for finance students.
In looking forward to 1998, we are pleased to report the launch of two new projects: GSQ: The Payment Systems Quarterly magazine will debut in February 1998, and our new conference schedule "Financial Services Today-Creating Wealth as an ISO," will launch in January and run through May 1998. Along with the addition of Dr. Dave Barnett's monthly Sales Psychology article ("Talk to Dr. Dave") and a year-long series from guest columnist Robert Carr focusing on bankcard sales, we hope that 1998 will be the best Green Sheet year ever.
As always, we continue to respond to your comments, so please continue to let us know what you think. We print the raves and the rants, so don't be shy.
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