Team meeting 20121129

Present: Ewen Le Borgne, Jane Gitau, Silvia Silvestri, Tezira Lore, Vish Nene.

#Discussion minutesDiscussion minutes

Next team meeting: Friday 14 December, 2-3pm.

Feedback on Mario's seminar

Good seminar. The questions were good. Attendance was ok but could be much better, particularly in terms of external (non-ILRI) folks, eventhough ICRAF was represented. Even internally, there is a skewed audience suggesting we are not yet managing to have representation from all parts of ILRI (e.g. for this seminar there were very few bio-tech folks).

• We need to understand who comes to our seminars to find out whether they're in for the contents or to meet and greet. Tezira will set up a 'sign-in' form so we can keep track of participants. [I have added the Word template to the checklist page under the section "In the week preceding the seminar". ^TL]
• We could have improved: the invitation with correct time (contradictory info between posters and email invites) and making sure we have the team on site (e.g. Angela wasn't around for Q&A as originally planned).
• In Addis the attendance is still poor because of audio facilities.
• The closing could have been a bit smoother, it was a bit abrupt. We should try and summarize the contents of the seminar, feedback from the audience, and thank everyone including virtual offices/people present.

Follow up on Mario's seminar

• Ewen will update the checklist to include all relevant lessons into it.
• Jane will draft the blog post and will upload the presentation on Slideshare (with Angela). We don't have an audio/video file for this seminar.
• Ewen will prepare the survey on SurveyMonkey.

Other seminars

Check this page for the list of next seminars. Next one is Su Kahumbu's seminar. Silvia and Susan need to get in touch about this, confirm the date (11 December), prepare a flyer and an email invitation (for the VIPs) as well as get clarity on the format of the seminar. The flyer should be compelling enough (e.g. showing that Su is a TedTalk speaker) to ensure people turn up, as the seminar takes place one day before a bank holiday. In January we should have a BioTech one. Vish will come back to us on this next week. Silvia will check the availability of Arjen Hoekstra for a seminar in February, using and adapting the invitation letter template used for Su Kahumbu.

Other follow up points from last minutes.

From Delia's survey results, it seems that for some the camera doesn't add value. Not everyone agrees but we certainly need to do some more testing with the web cam and speaker positioning. This needs to be reflected in the checklist. The survey should indicate the title/author of the presentation appearing on the results of the survey? After the next seminar, once we have processed results from the last survey (about Mario's seminar) we need to come back to ILRI staff and introduce our consolidated feedback on their suggestions from the surveys. We also need to find out why some people are not coming and this could happen in team meetings, if all of us raise this issue and get a conversation going about it. In addition, we might need to develop a survey specifically for those that are not attending the seminars so we can find out what causes this. We need seminars in/from Addis to boost attendance from that side. It's planned for February and March, possibly for April (Barry Shapiro and the Livestock Master Plan).

---

Full skype minutes

• Agenda

Feedback on Mario’s seminar? Follow up on Mario’s seminar? Update on action points from last discussion? Next seminar?

• 1. Feedback on Mario's seminar
• Title was different between promotion and presentation
• Only 1 person from outside ADD/NBO
• Very few people from outside
• Liked the questions at the end
• We can arrange to have sb to answer questions but she wasn't there last minute
• It would be good to have the people confirm their availability and inform the team if they can't come last minute
• Enjoyed the presentation (Silvia)
• Enjoyed the presnetation (Vish) but couldn't stay for the questions
• Very few biotech folks there
• Very little turnout compared to what it should be. The room seemed full but the composition was very skewed
• Not very balanced attendance - a pattern from previous seminars
• Silvia agrees
• Jane: agree. What could we do to get those who are not coming?
• Maybe it's an issue of timing? Shall we move to the morning?
• We could circulate an email to our respective teams to encourage them? It's also a case of culture shift and it will take time
• Silvia reminded her team several times but still not every one turned up on time...
• Feedback from Jane: good turnout but we need to get more people across the institute. Also had some folks from ICRAF.
• They were interested in what we are doing
• Tezira agrees
• How many people were really interesated in the topic as opp'd to just meeting/greeting
• It could have been better in terms of internal audience
• 2. Follow up

o Check checklist and update accordingly o Upload presentation o Blog post about it embedding presentation? o Audio/video file? o Survey to prepare and bring together in the message linking past and next seminar?

• ELB to update checklist
• No audio file
• Jane writing on the blog post
• ELB to prepare survey
• Feedback from Delia's symposium was to close properly. It didn't happen
• Whoever's MCing should wrap up the seminar, thank everyone etc. so we can close properly
• Hilary should have the file
• we haven't receive it before
• Jane and Angela to upload ppt
• Profiling the attendance - may be good (for non-ILRI folks) to have a sign-in form for people so we know who comes over...
• Action point: Tezira to develop a sign-in sheet / asking if they want to be put on the ILRI mailing list?
• 3. update from last minutes

o Check survey results? What to do about it? o Webstreaming of seminars o IPMS seminar o Su Kahumbu? o Vish’s seminar? o Arjen’s seminar o IP seminar?

• http://ilriseminars.wikispaces.com/file/view/SurveySummary_11192012.pdf
• Feedback about camera not adding value: for us in Nbi it's difficult to know about this but what do others think?
• Would it be possible to have for our record the title/author of the presentation appearing on the results of the survey?
• (To Silvia) Yes
• We should do more testing about the video and where people should be placed vis-a-vis the camera
• http://ilriseminars.wikispaces.com/Team_meeting_20121119
• Su Kahumbu available for the next seminar
• Silvia will contact Arjen, adapting the invitation letter used for Su
• http://ilriseminars.wikispaces.com/Upcoming+seminars
• No news from Su since check-up on the phone. In recent comms meeting it seems that Su would be available on Tue. 11 Dec.
• Silvia and Susan to discuss and then get back to Su afterwards
• Silvia and Susan to prepare a flyer and send an email out to all (including VIP list) + get clarity on the format of the talk
• 'Ted is coming to ILRI'
• After next seminar, we need to prepare a consolidated message about the feedback we have collected and that we re-emphasize that these seminars should be attended + try to collect feedback from people who are NOT attending
• Or use team meetings to collect feedback from people who are not attending
• We might need to have a survey for people who are not attending seminars
• For the future it might be good to have a seminar from Addis