How to accumulate over 81,000.?

Increasing your Network Connection base is very beneficial in so many ways so for those who are wondering what the purpose is or benefit, I would like to give you a brief of how I personally found it useful:

1- Mentoring / Assistance: In many cases, I connect with people and they send me a thank you message for connecting with them and say that they are new here and were wondering how they can start on this platform so I help them out get started here. Some people feel shy or not comfortable taking a first step.

2- Enhancing the Community Engagement: Item 1, leads to enhanced member engagement with this community as soon as they get their head around it and understand how much of an amazing platform and community it is. I feel that everyone of us should have a sense of ownership towards this community to try as much as he/she can to work towards enhancing it.

3- Connecting on other Platforms: In many occasions when I connect with people here, they send me a thank you message and tell me that they are not very active here and ask to connect on LinkedIn and share expertise. I did benefit a lot from so many people.

4- Connecting in Person: In many occasions, I connected with people on person via connecting through this platform and some of them (To be specific 2), we became friends although they are not very active here.

In summary, Network connections has so many advantages. You just need to look at the positive side of things and look whats beyond that number. I am not saying I am connection with all my connections but I certainly connected with a decent no. of people. (If you connect closely with 500 people out of the 80,000, this is a great achievement - This a small percentage maybe but a big number).

To address other issues that were mentioned:

1- Having Connections contributes very minimal to your influence. Check the rules under how to increase your influence.

2- It takes times to build a network base, it builds over time. There is no automatic connect thing except for the one that PMI created that connects you automatically to people from your chapter and you can turn that off.

3- At least 4 of our fellow colleagues who have huge Network Connection base are very active on this community and adds a lot of value.

For me, it is not about adding connections to show off the number. It is about the whole package of me being a member of this community, leading by example, contributing, helping, connecting, learning and the goes on.

Good knowledge and advise from your point of view.

Increasing your Network Connection base is very beneficial in so many ways so for those who are wondering what the purpose is or benefit, I would like to give you a brief of how I personally found it useful:

1- Mentoring / Assistance: In many cases, I connect with people and they send me a thank you message for connecting with them and say that they are new here and were wondering how they can start on this platform so I help them out get started here. Some people feel shy or not comfortable taking a first step.

2- Enhancing the Community Engagement: Item 1, leads to enhanced member engagement with this community as soon as they get their head around it and understand how much of an amazing platform and community it is. I feel that everyone of us should have a sense of ownership towards this community to try as much as he/she can to work towards enhancing it.

3- Connecting on other Platforms: In many occasions when I connect with people here, they send me a thank you message and tell me that they are not very active here and ask to connect on LinkedIn and share expertise. I did benefit a lot from so many people.

4- Connecting in Person: In many occasions, I connected with people on person via connecting through this platform and some of them (To be specific 2), we became friends although they are not very active here.

In summary, Network connections has so many advantages. You just need to look at the positive side of things and look whats beyond that number. I am not saying I am connection with all my connections but I certainly connected with a decent no. of people. (If you connect closely with 500 people out of the 80,000, this is a great achievement - This a small percentage maybe but a big number).

To address other issues that were mentioned:

1- Having Connections contributes very minimal to your influence. Check the rules under how to increase your influence.

2- It takes times to build a network base, it builds over time. There is no automatic connect thing except for the one that PMI created that connects you automatically to people from your chapter and you can turn that off.

3- At least 4 of our fellow colleagues who have huge Network Connection base are very active on this community and adds a lot of value.

For me, it is not about adding connections to show off the number. It is about the whole package of me being a member of this community, leading by example, contributing, helping, connecting, learning and the goes on.

A better question is "What's the point of accumulating 81,000 contacts in your network?"
A person can achieve this number by visiting every member’s profile and clicking ‘Connect’, and many will accept their request. While a large number of connections will boost your Influence, this score has no meaning - no employer will hire someone because he has a high Influence score on Projectmanagement.com, and a high score doesn’t mean you’re an expert Project Manager.
Members with tens of thousands of connections usually haven’t exchanged a single word with most of their network, making them no different than complete strangers. It’s far better to have a few dozen people in your network with whom you regularly communicate and exchange knowledge than tens of thousands with whom you don’t.

I did random network building here briefly and on Instagram. On Instagram, I thought everyone was a potential customer, so I wasn’t selective about who I followed. it was a big mistake and I’m still cleaning up my list. What was I thinking? I want quality contacts with similar interests. Likewise on this site. Having a vast network is useless unless real connections are made. I’d rather see network building based on the perspectives shared on the site and the value we mutually bring to the community. Thanks for the reminder. I don’t intend to be a network snob, but I might be a little more discerning about who I add going forward ??

Well said Rami

I am wondering what people feel is the negative side to having a large network.

If I answer someone's question or someone answers a question for me I add them to my network. Some of you I have attended a webinar with and I also have added you to LinkedIn. Some people have communicated with me through my Inbox. I have read articles and blogs written by people I have in my network. When I watch an interesting webinar I connect with the presenter. There are some people that I have never communicated with(so far).

I have found alot of benefits to this site and promote it regularly to co-workers.

To me there is no downside to continuing to add connections. I hope as the site continues to mature there may be future opportunities to interact with people in my network.