Am I off on this thought?
1. You could find people paying cash for your coins and get to know them. The opposite could also be true
2. Rather than doing public pools you could coordinate local mining pools with people you know. Help people having issues and build relationships
3. You could find people who like to offer things to others and work on building bitcoin services everyone can use.
4. Make friends with people.
I am sure I am missing something here but, any ideas you can chime in.
Since those like minded people aren't always nearby, perhaps a better idea would be if someone were to create some sort of website where people who are interested in bitcoin can all find each other to engage in those same activities. They could call it "bitcointalk" or something like that. That'd be cool.