From the “Roadmap for 5.3” discussion:
The idea of focusing parts of the gramps UX on the topic of research is a brilliant one. But rather than changing the GUI, I’ve focused on the human collaboration and conversation on a topic. The idea is that you can start a research topic, invite particular collaborators, and have group chats on the topic.
I’ve refactored the previously named “Messages” into “Discussions” based on the basic idea. Now gramps-connect users can have target conversations about a particular set of gramps items.
Version 0.8.0 is now available: Releases · dsblank/gramps-connect · GitHub
But that wasn’t the point of the idea. 
Indeed, but I took @GeorgeWilmes’ specific GUI idea, and saw a bigger point: how can we more easily do research in Gramps? Part of that answer, for me, was to connect human conversations (goals and research topics) with links to gramps objects.
I’ll continue thinking about this because to me it is a central point between being just a “list of things” and being an active research tool.
I would really like to have something that facilitates conversations.
For instance, I have “Genealogist, hobbyist” and “Genealogist, professional” occupations for many of my contacts. When I find a new piece of significant research to attach to an ancestor, I would love something that would help in notifying all the Genealogist descendants and Associations. And that drafts an addressed eMail to those persons. (Better yet if the drafted message identified the recipient’s and their connection/association to the person of interest.)
The mashup @dsblank did for RootsTech all those years ago facilitated Twitter conversations. It read like a similar objective.
I’ll work tomorrow to get a hosted version up so that you can try it out with your colleagues.
You can also get started with the desktop version: