After missing the Brisbane Meetup for the second time I thought a little bit about 
Okay, so maybe not everyone is comfortable in a group situation or socialize the same way, and I don't think we have to necessarily wait for a meetup to be organized to try and meet fellow Steemians. But I did find people in the #teamaustralia posts that I would like to meet (even though I am not 'mentoring' them). And I did find syncing calendars with a smaller group of people is a lot easier than trying to get everyone at the same place and same time (so just like Discord :D).
With Facebook it was a case of already knowing the people in real life and finding out that they don't really spend as much time in the real world as they do on Facebook Messenger or posting photos (or reacting to posts). On Steemit I have come across so many interesting people and knowing that you can share not just an interest in Steemit and cryptocurrency but other things as well!
I deliberately decided not to write a post about the details of this meeting, because I don't think we should be attaching value to writing the post itself but to the actions and interactions that come from these meetings (but you should see some future posts that have resulted from this meeting soon). I wrote about this a couple of months ago but now that I am putting it into practice because I can see just how important it actually is that we find ways to reward people not for writing posts but for getting out there and creating value for Steemit in other ways:
And a couple of days ago I would be a hypocrite for saying that we should get out there and meet other Steemians without having done it myself, but now that I have seen the value of this I think these are the main benefits:
- You can talk about a lot more in person than by commenting or chatting on Discord
- A handshake and smile tells you more about a person than their introduceyourself post
- You can use actual names instead of usernames at Steemit Meetups
Of course, you will probably find other benefits as well that you might not have thought about before, but you won't know until you actually go out there and meet other Steemians. This is not to say that you should just rush out there and try to meet every Steemian that you can, but I think an important part of this community is about transferring the value of these online interactions that the platform enables out to the real world where it can make more of a difference.
I think this point about making Steemit more than just about posting and getting followers if you want to learn and grow is even more important to me after reading a recent post from 
https://steemit.com/teamaustralia/@just2random/i-m-hanging-up-the-pens-for-a-while
...and also other people's reaction about it:
https://steemit.com/teamaustralia/@datascience/reflections-on-just2random-leaving-steemit
I do think that a little bit more human touch to the community can't hurt can it?