PlanHawk is happy to announce that we are back up in the iTunes App Store and better than ever ! Take a look and let us know what you think. Thanks for your patience.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/planhawk/id37896...

The way you described this distinction above makes me realize that BWP is more of a biz dev & marketing service provider that also supplies the city as a whole with a great support, rather than what I originally thought — namely, that it's a charitable organization that can also provide valuable biz dev & marketing to contributors. (I think it was the 501-(c)3 status that threw me off.)

This is awesome for a few reasons:

1) BWP is proof that social entrepreneurship is possible on a regional corporate level — It's a business model that provides greater value to the ecosystem each time a business funding partner invests with their own interests in mind.

2) BWP is evidence that natural networkers — Connectors — can grow their own social capital while providing an initially less-tangible but nonetheless valuable return to the companies investing in BWP. This is something the community here should be better “educated” on, and it certainly will be with the case studies BWP has undertaken. After all, who doesn't like the idea of building a better network for their business in a way that's transparent and beneficial to the ecosystem as a whole?

3) BWP shows that there's still a very real value for a modern city in today's Information Age in better facilitating so-called “real life” connections. We can Tweet at one another all day long, but there's something to be said for the real world network of the city's best and brightest growing more robust through efforts like that of the BWP. Which is to say, it IS a small world, after all, and digital communication can be seen as additive, not potentially threatening, to the “old systems.”

4) BWP stands as an example that some of the most exciting and potentially impactful business models are ones that longtime business people might initially see as “non-traditional.”

Very cool. We look forward to continuing to follow BWP and become further involved with your group. From our perspective, BWP is something that's easy to get behind.

-Kyle

The reason the distinction is meaningful to me is because businesses need to understand that BWP is offering something of DIRECT value for the business funding partner, unrelated to the general good will / enlightened self interest that a charitable funding partner might expect. We're seeing business funding partners making these investments in BWP out of their biz dev, marketing, strategy or government affairs budgets, which are the activities where we deliver the value to them.

Here is another great piece Alexis wrote for Color Magazine about her own personal experiences:

http://tinyurl.com/3a96vym

This is absolutely brilliant. I hope it takes off. I will sign up for it for sure. I hope it takes off. Very very green.

[..] Today I was reading this great blog post and i wanted to link to it [..]…

Kyle Psaty
Editor
BostInnovation.com

thanks for featuring this. One slight correction – most of the funding partners announced today were not making CHARITABLE donations. Mostly, they were investing biz dev/marketing dollars to use BWP as a vehicle for driving their own growth strategies. It's an important distinction from our point of view. The State Street Foundation donation was charitable in nature, based on their sense of BWP's value in strengthening Greater Boston and growing the regional economy. We welcome both kinds of funding partners, but we really envision our growth being funded by businesses that are investing out of self-interest.

Dave Mclaughlin
@connectorsRus

Kyle Psaty
Editor
BostInnovation.com

Can anyone else view it in the App Store?

Igor Balk
Founder, TaskPoint – http://www.taskpoint.com