Once upon a time, last year to be exact, in the midst of cold, cold February, I got a new stereo installed in my car so I’d have music and podcasts to keep me company on the long drive up the Hope-Princeton to Penticton. I was braving cold and winter driving conditions to attend the very first Eat.Drink.Tweet Conference, put on by my friend Allison Markin of All She Wrote Consulting.

It was a hoot. I had a deliciously good time: got to stay at a swank guest house, met a whole raft of cool people, presented my YouTube workshop, ate some fantastic food, and, yes, I drank some wine. You can read about my Eat.Drink.Tweet experience here.

And I’m not the only one. Allison’s little conference sold out, was trending on Twitter for three days (a funny story about that in a sec), and won The Thompson Okanagan Tourism Association’s 2011 award for Social Media Initiative.

In a tragedy of epic proportions, I can’t attend this year, due to a work conflict. But you should really go, especially if you are in the wine/food/cultural tourism business. The connections and information you’ll be able to take away from the weekend will be immense. Heck, even if you don’t do that stuff for a living, and you just like good food and wine, you should go!

And now, a social media cautionary tale: on the first night of the conference last year, Friday, we attended the keynote by Rick Bakas, then a wine tasting of local Naramata Bench wineries. Allison announced that if we could make the hashtag #Eat.Drink.Tweet trend on twitter, she would get a tattoo with the EDT logo. In the true spirit of social media (transparency and authenticity), Allison got her tattoo.