want a new code convention? best make a writeup and pros/cons for it to make it digestable to your fellow devs.
want a code fix on a third party lib? best make a case for why its a value-add for the maintainers.
want a new friend? best be interesting enough that the person has a reason to remember you.
everything is a sell, though the buyers arent always buying with their wallets
While this is true, one is better off from thinking about this from first principles, such as what are some undeniable truths that are constant over time given an intractable problem space. Evolving software over and over around those constants, under the constraint of that one problem space, makes for a viable sell (but one does have to sell) especially in a b2b setting. Note that, early adopters don't need much of a selling-to, by definition, if the software as much as interests them and fulfills a tiny modicum of their needs.
More seriously, some of the best friends I have made is because I randomly took the initiative to start a study group with them despite the fact that we had never spent time together as a group. There is always an animator making things work. If you want to actually do interesting things, you very often need to be that person. While you might not get the ego boost of being a 'chosen' one, you will occasionally receive thanks from those who recognize what you did to make things happen for everyone.
[0] supposedly. I'm not convinced.