Mariah's Biography

Mariah works as a meeting designer, teacher, and visual thinking specialist. She helps clients like non-profit organizations, corporations, and community groups to translate their visions, processes, plans – anything! – into engaging images. Whether she’s listening to a keynote at a large conference or sitting at the table during a small meeting, Mariah captures her clients’ key messages and themes in Visual Records – metaphors, images, and words that she draws in real time. She also loves designing meetings that tap into the wisdom of groups and their ability to think together. Mariah teaches the practice of visual thinking in public and private workshops, building on participants’ innate creativity and desire to communicate effectively. She lives in beautiful Oakland, CA, with her husband and lots of art supplies.

Please contact her at howard.mariah@gmail.com to find out how to bring visuals into your work.

Her clients include: Genentech, Salesforce.com, PepsiCo, Nike, The United Way, GlaxoSmithKlein, AAA, Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD), The Veteran’s Association, and many more!

Saturday, October 18, 2008

Tailor-Made Visual Recording Workshops


A Google employee prepares a map for a World Cafe harvest.

Visual Recording workshops help you develop a new creative skill to use at work and home:
  • You can offer a Visual Recording workshop that is designed just for your organization:
    • I offer a one or two day workshop that teaches the basic skills of Visual Recording that can be directly applied to your work: everyone can learn to take notes in Visual Record form, and we can even teach you to Record the ideas and conversations of others.
    • A Visual Recording workshop will highlight the creativity and ingenuity of your co-workers as they learn to Visually Record your next meeting or conversation.
    • Bringing Visual Recording skills into your workplace supports the many different learning styles in your company; over %65 percent of people are visual learners, so make sure you're reaching your whole audience at work.
    • At the end of the day, each person will have created posters, Visual Records, and icons that can be used right away at work or home.
    • After a Visual Recording workshop, you'll think even better as a team, because now you can see your collective ideas all in the same place.
    • A Visual Record you created on your office wall is a great way to keep inspired and engaged.
    • Create a personalized Visual Record during a workshop that you can give as a individual gift or seasons greetings card.

Students at SCAD University in a Visual Recording workshop.


Employees at Google learning to Visually Record a live conversation.

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Latino Roundtable, Chicago IL


A poster I created for a presentation on "Forging the Tools for Unity: A Report on Metro Chicago’s Mayor’s Roundtables on Latino Integration."

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Systems Challenge Mural: NCDD '08



The first of many images to come from our work at the National Conference on Dialog and Deliberation in Austin Texas. This mural is a compilation of comments left by participants over the three day gathering. 5 challenge areas related to D&D were chosen as themes of the conference and I mapped the issue concerning integrating D&D into our systems.