Every minute is precious if you have a goal to reach.
Speaking from experience I know it is hard not to define yourself by the people around you, but it's deadly.
What helped (and continues to help) me is this question: Do you want to be that person?
As in, "do you want to be the person who sits in the office chatting and surfing facebook all day? or do you want to be the person who other people look to to get things done?"
The point is, look at yourself from outside. Decide how you want to act (for me, thinking about how I want to be perceived helps here). Then make it happen. Stop waiting for the people around you to make you into the person you want to be.
So I don't mean to sound like I'm complaining. That said, there's still a lot of room for improvement, if I find like-minded people and get a chance to work with them.
I'm going to a workshop on the very topic that interests me[2], and I hope that'll be my chance to do some networking in this narrow area, and maybe get a chance to collaborate on something.
Because of salary it is a dificult position to leave for me, but I'm working on that developing my own startup :)
The most obvious way on HN to find productive people is probably to move into the valley, or a similar region, but that's a big step from most parts of the world. And then there is the huge shadow mass of brilliant programmers who aren't extroverted on the internet but that I'd love to have around me. They probably exist even in smaller cities or rural areas, but how do you find them?