Not LinkedIn enough

I have 19 direct contacts on LinkedIn:

• One is a duplicate entry (he created two accounts and connected both to me).
• Three are connections "sluts" (as they are sometimes called, without, apparently meaning to be derogatory).
• One would be a connection slut but is serious about networking to benefit his developing country (and could well be a useful contact for me).
• Another one would also be a connection slut (he has a massive set of contacts) but I connected to him as I wanted to join the LinkedIn group he is running.

That leaves 13 people I know.

Of these, six people have five or less contacts. Of these six, three I particularly expected would amass a lot of contacts. Like, that's why I invited them (partly).

The remaining seven people I know and have a good, reasonable set of contacts.

I read somewhere that the average person has a network of around 150 people, i.e. people they can name and contact. OK, for graduate professionals that average could be higher.

But how can you know around 1,000 people? That is, well enough to relay a new contact, or even recollect their name.

Well, there are people in LinkedIn who have these number of people in their contacts lists. Actually, I'm not too bothered about these "connection sluts" (I think they're also called "permiscuous connectors", or "super-connectors"), they tend to be quite senior people in bona fide positions and companies. And they do have a very good set of contacts. I've linked to three of them myself when I received their invitations ("hey, I was new to LinkedIn and naive"). But I'm not too sure of the value of their contacts.

Currently I have nine outstanding invitations for people to join. I'm a bit surprised at some of the people who haven't responded positively yet. Still, they've got time.

I can only invite 10 people at a time, as the list of outstanding invitation reduces I'll invite some more (I can think of at least a couple of people I know who read this blog, bless them -don't worry, you're on my list).