Since I wrote this, LW has moved much more towards emphasizing social skills as a part of the general awesomeness toolkit (much more to do with lukeprog's articles than anything I wrote). This has been a great help to me personally, and has decreased my motivation to start a group like the one I proposed in this article.

I still like the idea of doing this in a group setting, and am very open to the conversation. We've started an Ottawa LW meetup, and I would love to brainstorm ways to make it more fun. We have broached topics like the above, but they don't seem to be a strong common interest.

Anyway, here are some references that might be helpful:

How to Win Friends and Influence People

Social Skills Picture Book

Succeed Socially

Influence

48 Laws of Power

(BTW, the @ tag doesn't work on LW, I only saw this when you replied to one of my comments)