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!

Monday, January 26, 2009

Visual Recording on a Big and Small Scale


In my Visual Recording work I get to listen to and graphically capture a variety of events, conferences, and meetings. Not only is the content unique to each event, the scale of the conversations taking place also varies from job to job. Sometimes I record conversations between teams of people within a large organizations and other times I'm charting the ideas of hundreds of people at a national conference. When the number of participants in a conversation is small, I can record on paper while sitting at a table and blend in pretty seamlessly with the group. When meetings take place in conference centers, I'm Visually Recording in front of hundreds of people, capturing the content in large murals that are projected onto screens so the whole audience can watch the murals taking shape. While the size and scale of the conversation changes, the practice of listening to the core ideas and visually depicting the key points always remains the same.
Most recently, I had the opportunity to work on a very large scale with a fellow Visual Recorder, the lovely and extremely talented Michelle Boos Stone. Michelle and I worked together to capture the conversations of a manufacturing company interested in taking a new and empowered stance in their business. We created fifteen 4x8 murals while working on a stage in front of the audience of almost 750 people, seen below.