I know there is a Buddypress Shortcodes plugin that claims to do this, but I an others find this unusable and in seems the author has gone away.

What I would like to do is display a grid on users and groups on my homepage, showing small icons, say in a 8 or 10 wide grid, by two or three deep.

I’m very much into the idea that a site should have a composite homepage, showing activity, groups, members, forum activity etc all on one page and such a shortcode, as an extension to your excellent Activity shortcode would be very useful.