LinkedIn Toolbar for Outlook -- OUCH!!!

I recently attended a very interesting presentation made by David Hatter of Libertas Technologies at the Cincinnati American Marketing Association Business-to-Business SIG (Shared Interest Group). David provided some new information about how to use LinkedIn for business and he also mentioned the 4Cs of Social Media:

• Communication
• Collaboration
• Coordination
• Connectivity

All in all, I would recommend anyone to attend his next presentation. You'll definitely learn something.

Here's' my problem. David recommended that I consolidate all my LinkedIn contacts into MS Outlook and allow Outlook to function as my personal CRM platform. To do this, he suggested that I download the LinkedIn Outlook Toolbar. Even though he mentioned that the latest version of the download might have a few bugs, I couldn't wait to get home and get started.

The download process itself was easy and painless, but that's as far as it went. As soon as I made any attempt to install the new toolbar, MS Outlook went into cardiac arrest. I tried to make it work, but had to remove the LinkedIn Outlook Toolbar application from my PC before I was ever able to get MS Outlook to function.

I guess the next step would be to contact the LinkedIn Service Center and request some help, but I want to see if Social Networking will get me the answers in a quicker, more user-friendly way.

Here are the facts. I've been too cheap to upgrade my MS Office 2000 to the most recent version and, now that I am not currently working, I can't afford the cost. My MS Office 2000 works great for my needs and I can't justify the upgrade.

I'm getting the feeling that all my problems with the LinkedIn Outlook Toolbar might go away if I had the latest version of MS Outlook, but am ever hopeful that someone out there will have the solution to my problem.

By the way, this in no way diminishes my appreciation and admiration for LinkedIn. It's still the best networking tool for me and I happily recommend it to everyone.

Looking forward to getting my solution.