Workstreamr coins "workstreaming" making project-based work more social and more fluid

It’s a fact in today’s work world that projects and project teams are often fluid.  You need some people for one project, but not others.  This isn’t anything terribly new, but what is new is that the “team” is often spread out geographically.  With ad-hoc teams and virtual teams, it is more and more crucial that you can build a project team from the best resources you can tap into.  Who are these resources?  Generally you already know them, or other members of the core team know them.  So, how do you connect the dots?

Stowe Boyd has dropped the curtain, at least partially, on his latest project, Workstreamr which has the aim and goal to deal with the new realities of work:

Workstreamr is that tool, designed to apply several complementary principles to project-based work. The combination of social media, professional networking, and ’streaming’—information being directed from applications to the user proactively via a desktop client—we call ‘workstreaming.’ I believe that Workstreamr is the first application specifically and uniquely designed to support workstreaming. Source: /Message: Workstreamr: Work Made Social

As Stowe describes it, Workstreamr has three main areas of focus:

• Projects are where work gets done in business, and this is true in Workstreamr as well. Users can invite others to collaborate in projects, where tasks, milestones, events, and discussions are shared in a blog-like way, although password-protected.
• Users can publish personal profile information, and can remain in contact with others about project work and professional interests by ‘following’ friends, colleagues, and organizations. Any project you are involved in is automatically followed.
• Organizations—companies, non-profits, universities, and so on—can likewise publish profiles, allowing users and other organizations to remain aware of activities, events, calls-for-proposals, and hiring or consulting opportunities.

It all sounds great to me, so I’ve signed up for the beta invite list on the main Workstreamr homepage.  Hoping that I can get in early and get my hands dirty with it.  There is some interesting info on the Workstreamr philosophy of work on the Workstreamr blog, but little information about the app itself.

Do you think combining social media and networking is good for project work?  Do you think this is already happening and Workstreamr is just a great idea too late?

Comment folks!