{"id":6640,"date":"2026-09-17T01:04:27","date_gmt":"2026-09-17T01:04:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/frontlinenewsng.org\/?p=6640"},"modified":"2026-09-17T01:04:27","modified_gmt":"2026-09-17T01:04:27","slug":"matt-omfest-a-celebration-of-curiosity-connection-and-the-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/frontlinenewsng.org\/?p=6640","title":{"rendered":"Matt: OmFest: A Celebration of Curiosity, Connection, and the Future"},"content":{"rendered":"
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OmFest is coming together quite nicely! The new website is beautiful and highlights some of the experiences available throughout the day<\/a>. I think Om would be very impressed by the attendee list. We\u2019re doing it at the Swedish American Hall<\/a>, the same venue as the first WordCamp<\/a>, where Om, of course, spoke about Blogs and Journalism<\/a>. (The videos have been lost to digirot, unless anyone has some recordings? I\u2019ve been looking everywhere.)<\/p>\n

Below is cross-posted from OmFest.co<\/a>:<\/p>\n

September 29th<\/sup> is when Om would have turned 60.\u00a0<\/p>\n

When I first started thinking about how to mark the day<\/a>, I knew I didn\u2019t want a traditional memorial. Om loved bringing interesting people together, and he loved a festival that taught him something he didn\u2019t already know. His curiosity crossed so many worlds and passions: technology, journalism, photography, investing, watches, pens, coffee, design, music, India, New York, San Francisco. <\/p>\n

So we\u2019re bringing these worlds together. On September 29 in San Francisco, we\u2019re throwing OmFest\u2014twelve hours of ideas, objects, food, music, and conversation, organized and anchored around a statement Om once said:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cIf you pay enough attention to the present, you can see the future.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Present Future<\/h2>\n

Instead of tributes or keynotes, we\u2019ll host a series of short talks with one simple challenge: teach us something you\u2019re seeing before everyone else sees it. No pitches, no career retrospectives. You don\u2019t even have to talk about Om. What happens to photography when anyone can generate the perfect image with AI? Why do physical objects become more meaningful as our lives become more digital? Are glasses becoming computers? What does handwriting do to the way we think? Different subjects, same goal: everyone leaves knowing something they didn\u2019t know when they arrived.<\/p>\n

A Festival of Om\u2019s Curiosity <\/h2>\n

Between the talks, there will be plenty to stumble upon. Through Om\u2019s Lens: a gallery of Om\u2019s photography. TIME: an exhibit that uses his watch obsession to spark a discussion about craft and collecting. Field Notes: a communal writing table stocked with fine paper, fountain pens, and ink, where you can write something worth remembering\u2014and either keep it or leave it behind to be bound in a book to commemorate the day. And Om\u2019s Shelf: books he read, loved, and recommended. The collection will start full and slowly empty as his favorite reads pass into other hands.<\/p>\n

People from Om\u2019s different worlds will drop in throughout the day to share knowledge and facilitate small, hands-on moments: a photography tutorial, a notebook-binding session, a lesson on the mechanics of a watch, an experience with a coffee you\u2019ve never tried, a tea ceremony. And, woven into this experience, will be OM\/60: sixty small discoveries about Om, hidden throughout. <\/p>\n

All Roads Lead to Om<\/h2>\n

The most important part, however, isn\u2019t any of these objects. At check-in, instead of a badge with your company and title, you\u2019ll choose the worlds through which you knew Om: photography, journalism, technology, GigaOm, investing, WordPress, India, coffee, pens and ink, design, music, or simply friends and family.<\/p>\n

Then we build a physical map of it. It starts nearly empty. You add yourself, mark how you knew Om and whom he introduced you to, and those people connect to others. By the end of the night, I hope we\u2019ll be able to see what Om spent a lifetime making. <\/p>\n

The question I keep asking myself: who will meet because of Om that Om never had the chance to introduce? If OmFest works, his network won\u2019t just be documented that day. It\u2019ll grow. <\/p>\n

From Ideas to Celebration<\/h2>\n

The day flows and builds. Morning is coffee, breakfast, books, photography, and conversation. The middle is deliberately unstructured\u2014wander, eat, write, talk. In the evening, friends share short stories as we raise a glass to Om on his 60th. Then the bars roll in, the lights go down, the music gets louder, and OmFest becomes DesiParty: his old-school New York nights, Asian Underground, bhangra, electronica. We start with ideas and end with dancing. That feels right.<\/p>\n

Version 1.0<\/h2>\n

What we\u2019re building shouldn\u2019t end on September 29. What does registration look like if it\u2019s designed to help strangers talk to each other? How do you design a conference around curiosity instead of status? How do you make something that works for a two-hour visit or a twelve-hour one? How does a room encourage connection without forcing networking? <\/p>\n

We\u2019re treating OmFest as an experiment. We\u2019ll document what works\u2014formats, designs, code, templates, check-in, programming\u2014and open source as much of it as we can. Other events can take the best ideas and make them better. <\/p>\n

September 29 isn\u2019t the end of OmFest. It\u2019s version 1.0. <\/p>\n

Come Build with Us<\/h2>\n

People from across Om\u2019s life are building OmFest together. Some are contributing photographs. Someone is making a textile; another is bringing tea and guiding ceremonies. Others are helping with watches, eyewear, books, music, writing, and stories. We haven\u2019t discovered whole parts of Om\u2019s world yet. That\u2019s the point.<\/p>\n

If Om introduced you to something, or someone, we\u2019d love to know. If there\u2019s something you think people should experience, see, hear, taste, read, or learn that day, tell us<\/a>. <\/p>\n

And if you just want to come, come. You don\u2019t need to have known Om. You only need to be curious.<\/p>\n

\n
RSVP here<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

OmFest is coming together quite nicely! The new website is beautiful and highlights some of the experiences available throughout the day. I think Om would be very impressed by the attendee list. We\u2019re doing it at the Swedish American Hall, the same venue as the first WordCamp, where Om, of course, spoke about Blogs and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6641,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6640","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news"],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/frontlinenewsng.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/b97df-all-roads-lead-to-om-1-1024x452-7bfSMN.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/frontlinenewsng.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6640","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/frontlinenewsng.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/frontlinenewsng.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/frontlinenewsng.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/frontlinenewsng.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6640"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/frontlinenewsng.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6640\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/frontlinenewsng.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/frontlinenewsng.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/frontlinenewsng.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/frontlinenewsng.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}