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!

Tuesday, September 30, 2008



A recent Visual Record I created for a consumer products company
during a retreat facilitated by Dawna Markova and her team of
Professional Thinking Partners.

Friday, September 26, 2008

Link
A live Visual Record created from a key note speech by
Jack Zenger at SCAD University in Savannah Georgia.

Thursday, September 18, 2008























This beautiful picture is of the inter-generational group of designers who came together last weekend to create the Youth Dialogue Project Sessions that will take place at the National Coalition for Dialog and Deliberation conference in October. The 3 sessions (mentioned in an earlier post) will focus on trans-generational leadership in the Dialog and Deliberation community and beyond. There will be concurrent sessions held at the NCDD conference, one designed specifically for folks under 30 and another for a group of over 30 participants, respectively titled "Including Our Voices: Young Adult Leadership in the D&D community" and "Creating Room at the Head of Our Tables: Exploring New Mentoring Roles as Young Leaders Emerge. The third session is a trans-generational gathering welcoming all ages into
a World Cafe conversation and exploration. The designers and Woody the dog, spent two days in Berkeley getting to know one another, sharing stories, participating in a World Cafe conversations, and developing the content of the sessions. I am honored to be part of this group and want to express my gratitude for their welcoming of both my Visual Recording as well as my ideas and experiences.















Getting the mapping started for our first session.













The World Cafe format being used to support conversation
between Vergers and mentors in trans-generational dialog.













The whole group of amazing folks from left to right, front row to back row: Estuko, Abigail, Deborah, Jonna, Alissa, Nick, Mariah and in the back row Milton, Mitch and Ken. Damn, we look good.

Sunday, September 14, 2008

Thought Leader Gathering: Harvest

Thought Leader Gathering: Structure of Belonging

The most recent Thought Leader Gathering hosted by Heartland Circle inspired these maps. The first map contains questions shared by participants at the opening circle, and the other maps came from conversations about community and leadership. This TLG focused on the work of Peter Block and his most recent book The Structure of Belonging. To see a larger version of any mpa, click on the image.





Link

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Visual Recording: Texas and beyond


Here I am mapping a synopsis of what took place during the Youth Dialog Project Conversations for Change gatherings in 2007. Young leaders from 8 countries were studying and discussing conflict resolution as part of Facing Violence: Justice, Religion and Conflict Resolution World Forum 2007, sponsored by The Rockrose Institute. Click on Youth Dialog Project to see a nice documentary about the YDP gathering and hear the wonderful Deborah Goldblatt narrating along.

I'm happy and honored to be working once again with Deborah as part of another inter-generational community she has helped to create. This time, there's a team of mentors, dialog hosts, teachers and youth leaders from On The Move, called together host a series of 3 workshops at this years NCDD conference in Austin. The sessions will be designed this weekend and will explore the relationship between trans-generational leadership and the dialog and deliberation community. I'm elated to participate in the design of these sessions at NCDD and Visually Record them too.

I'll share here what Visuals emerge from the conversations in Austin, from the inter-generational perspective, as and well as from my work as part of the
Graphics Team for NCDD. I'm glad to have been asked to be part of the team that's recording this years conference; it's a privilege to work with such skilled mappers and have the chance to try some new ways of recording as the role of graphics at this year's NCDD event promises to be unique and very interactive.