I checked out that project suggested by @applecrisp. That is a great initiative. Hopefully that will help your friend, as well as other new members who are in a similar situation.
One thing that I found is that posting is not always the best way to get involved at the start. I had a lot more fun at the beginning reading other people's posts that I was interested in, and commenting when I had something to respond. You don't have to be an excellent writer to be able to contribute good comments to someone else's post :)
This 'Daily Steem Poll' topic should hopefully help with new member involvement as well. One of the main objectives is for this to be a daily post, so that new users can be pointed to it and make a contribution. The topics should be 'easy' enough, that anyone should be able to add something to the discussion and share in the rewards from the overall post payout.