Excellent writing! I haven't been to that conference, but the 2016 experience you describe sounds exactly like our experience at SteemFest in Amsterdam. Deep connections/conversations came so easily and naturally.
If all goes as planned , we should be in Mexico by then. Hope to make it down there for it!
Ahh, yes, I do wish I could've been at Steemfest, but it didn't fit at the time. But we're also planning a Steemfest fork as well, which @lily-da-vine posted about, to give folks on this side of the globe an option a bit closer to home. :-D
Went looking for that but Lily is so prolific with here beautiful posts I couldn't find it.