WayneRE: How region and business type relate and how you want users to be able to filter them?
As I hinted earlier (perhaps in a different thread), just create an extra (or two) separate category data (as a new feature of Connections) that work and behaves just like the original category data throughout Connections and its extensions. ex:
category id12 = ‘Food / Beverage Stores’
category1 id3 = ‘North Western Ontario’
[connections category1='3'] would only show all with North Western Ontario.
Or a combination [connections category='12' category1='3'] would only show all with North Western Ontario AND with only Food / Beverage Stores.
Re: rename the Country field to Region
That is a good idea if there wasn’t the problem of people typing in variations of the same answer (as mentioned earlier). The multiple Category Tables (above) would be the ultimate solution to what I am trying to accomplish (they don’t type, they select).
As for the Country field itself I guess it wouldn’t matter if I left it as is and I guess it could be useful for companies that have a foreign branch office or headquarters.
Re: Building Bridges (awesome).
If you make a ‘Bridge’ extension then please make sure that it works with Contact Form 7 plug-in (another plug-in that uses short-codes to get things done). I use that plug-in for most of my forms needs in all my WP sites, it also has other extensions and third party plug-ins (ex: math-captcha) that work with it.