Some very good points here - I agree on some.
I think roeland just got the task to organize the best possible event - shiny logo etc like a company and getting folks outside of the Hive chain ecosystem is great though.
But I get your point, maybe a bit less bombasitic given the numer of attendees and the current standing of Hive might be better - also if we are shiny and behave like a huge corporate (know former Cisco events that looked similar but with biger audience of course) we might need to consider (ot that I would have suggested that numerous) to have an official face fpr this Hive - coould be @blocktrades - could be @theycallmedan - could be @detlev - given my background in marketing / comms I still am sure we need that cornerstone for the community as face.
Many will argue: We are not a company, we are a community driven project - all fine - but we will not groe that way. We could re-think ur spendings in marekting, tailor priorities and only do what helps the blockchain - hence we need KPIs and we need to take a look at KPIs - if activities fail to reach KPIs we to consider other things.
I am guilty of not being there and also ddi not visit many meetups since 5 years or so - but i remember the personal touch was key to keep bondign within the community.
But to make Hive known (apart from our name) we should re-evaluate waht and we do external events / communications. We still focus on the social media part of Hive which no one really cares outside - the web2 giants are still there whyever and there will no mass influx of content creators given the complex key maangement to name just one point.
I think we need to focus on tjeh USPs of this chain to be reelvant for companies, tu run projects here in a safe and fast envrionment- We could even talk to governmental institution to use the chain for political elections. We could say content creation and rewards should be in layer 2, not layer 1.
We are still the to go place for frustrated social media users - once they been here and do not get techs or others things they leave, and they will not come back.
Also when you compare our content (I am not the best as well) to the likes of Reddit there is more brain and intelligent content.
So what is the solution? I do not knw but agree waht @stayoutoftherz mentioned above - sitting together and brainstorm ideas to really improve the chain commercially - tech is fine, but we do not reach the in investors we want to finaly get recognized resulting in a higher Hive prize.
Just my thoughts.