Team meeting 20130816
Present: Angela Nekesa, Ewen Le Borgne, Silvia Silvestri, Susan MacMillan, Tezira Lore. Back to overview of team meeting minutes
Agenda
- Review of previous seminar by Klaus Butterbach
- Next seminar: Christie Peacock
- Upcoming Seminars
December one organised by John & Suzanne's team? Elisabeth Waithanji on gender in livestock research? WonkComms?
- AOB
Follow up on previous meetings?
Action points (summary):
- Ewen will update the checklist with some of these lessons
- Angela will ask Paul to work with Jane Gitau on the blog post about this, including the presentation etc.
- Ewen to get back to Iain on public speaking skills of Christie + check on YouTube
- Ewen to ask Wubalem + Tadelle, Simret to help with this
- Susan to follow up on organization of the December talk
- Susan, Angela and Tezira will lead the organisation of this seminar.
- Susan to ask Jemimah and Kathy to ask about the public speaking quality. Ewen to ask Nancy Johnson
- Angela and then Susan to take a final look at the Clippings post about the LLT survey results and to publish it.
Discussion minutes
Next team meeting: Thursday 29 August, 11am-12pm.
Review of previous seminar by Klaus Butterbach-Wahl
Good seminar but not great. Started too late, lasted too long (presentation), poorly attended compared to what it could be (40 people in total and mostly from the same team as Klaus - but good that management team attended it). Coffee was served at the onset, not at the end. WebEx access was great from Nairobi but in Addis very difficult to hear the speaker and comments. The seminar was also too technical and not tailored for the audience of LLTs. The presentation could have been more innovative.
Our lessons: Help the speaker prepare his/her presentation beforehand, there's no other way. And ask more questions to find out what qualifies a 'great speaker'. Klaus is a good speaker but not yet at the level of a wow-speaker.
ACTION: Ewen will update the checklist with some of these lessons ACTION: Angela will ask Paul to work with Jane Gitau on the blog post about this, including the presentation etc.
Next seminar: Christie Peacock
This was shared with Iain: Dear Iain, Hope you’re keeping well (and surviving the rain!). I am emailing to let you know that Christie Peacock who you know well is coming to Ethiopia in early September, to give a presentation at a meeting of the Ethiopian Veterinary Association. We thought it was a great opportunity for her to come ti ILRI and present the experience to date with Sidai, the livestock products microfranchise that she’s leading in Kenya. I’m hopeful it could have legs in Ethiopia, and so perhaps we could arrange something with FAO, Gates (I know Haddis quite well- and Sidai is Gates-funded) and all the various CG members? What do you think?
Everyone agrees we roll with this seminar. Since it will be broadcast from Addis Ewen will be leading this but won't be available during the seminar (5 September) so he needs help from other people based in Addis + occasionally (as and when) from seminar team.
ACTION: Ewen to get back to Iain on public speaking skills of Christie + check on YouTube ACTION: Ewen to ask Wubalem + Tadelle, Simret to help with this
Other upcoming seminars ( see list of planned & tentative seminars)
We agreed with John and Suzanne that we will go for quarterly seminars but it's not enough for scientists so we agreed we'd go for 4 yearly seminars organised by the teams of John/Suzanne (i.e. by scientists) and 2-3 others by our team, as and when.
We have to change the way we pitch those seminars to ensure they're understandable by most: start with implications and then explain briefly the process to get to the results. We have to focus on the implications for ILRI, for partners, for the livestock sector generally rather than present work as in any scientific presentation (process, results and just a bit of 'so what'?). The 'SO WHAT' is the important bit here.
We could also use a system to get live/direct feedback from the audience to find out if the seminar was understandable and nice. We could use blue/red cards for this. We would have to explain presenters about this beforehand so they don't get upset and pitch it to them as if they were going to give a presentation for TV. ACTION: Susan to follow up on organization of the December talk
Mid September: WonkComms
The WonkComms initiative from ODI could bring a speaker for one of our seminars. We agreed that this won't be a livestock live talk but a seminar targeting all Comms/KM folks from CGIAR and open to anyone at ILRI anyway. It may happen around 17-20 September when Peter Ballantyne and Tsehay Gashaw are around the Nairobi office for a Komms Klinics training. If possible this will be recorded too. ACTION: Susan, Angela and Tezira will lead the organisation of this seminar.
October: Gender in research?
Elisabeth Waithanji is keen on presenting a seminar about 'gender in research'. We need to find out if she is a great speaker. If not, she may give a farewell seminar anyhow, outside the Livestock Live Talk series. ACTION: Susan to ask Jemimah and Kathy to ask about the public speaking quality. Ewen to ask Nancy Johnson
December
See above: we need to know from John/Suzanne what the status is.
AOB
ACTION: Angela and then Susan to take a final look at the Clippings post about the LLT survey results and to publish it.
Full skype minutes
[8/19/13 3:06:29 PM] Ewen Le Borgne: http://ilriseminars.wikispaces.com/Team_meeting_20130816
[8/19/13 3:09:03 PM] Silvia Silvestri: i can type
[8/19/13 3:09:06 PM] Silvia Silvestri: low number of people attending
[8/19/13 3:09:09 PM] Silvia Silvestri: 27 in nairobi
[8/19/13 3:09:22 PM] Ewen Le Borgne: 13 in Addis
[8/19/13 3:09:23 PM] Silvia Silvestri: coffee at the end
[8/19/13 3:09:29 PM] Ewen Le Borgne: Coffee was supposed to be at the end
[8/19/13 3:09:31 PM] Silvia Silvestri: it happened at the beginning
[8/19/13 3:09:44 PM] Silvia Silvestri: talk started 10 minutes late
[8/19/13 3:09:52 PM] Silvia Silvestri: webex worked well
[8/19/13 3:10:03 PM] Silvia Silvestri: good
[8/19/13 3:10:35 PM] Silvia Silvestri: we could hear really well the questions from addis
[8/19/13 3:11:12 PM] Silvia Silvestri: it was a mixed feelings
[8/19/13 3:11:14 PM] Ewen Le Borgne: Call ended 5 minutes 31 seconds
[8/19/13 3:11:27 PM] Ewen Le Borgne: Call started
[8/19/13 3:12:00 PM] Ewen Le Borgne: Call ended 33 seconds
[8/19/13 3:12:07 PM] Silvia Silvestri: Call started
[8/19/13 3:12:10 PM] Ewen Le Borgne: (Silvia tries to call us Angela Tezira)
[8/19/13 3:12:36 PM] Silvia Silvestri: fine
[8/19/13 3:12:53 PM] Silvia Silvestri: yes, there was a part focused on ilri research
[8/19/13 3:13:07 PM] Silvia Silvestri: which I am not sure could be of interest of external people
[8/19/13 3:13:15 PM] Silvia Silvestri: but i really liked it
[8/19/13 3:13:16 PM] Silvia Silvestri: in the end
[8/19/13 3:13:37 PM] Ewen Le Borgne: Susan: we missed every 3rd/4th word
[8/19/13 3:13:46 PM] Ewen Le Borgne: But glad that big people were here listening from the Addis side
[8/19/13 3:13:54 PM] Ewen Le Borgne: Finding out what it means to have bad sound
[8/19/13 3:13:56 PM] Ewen Le Borgne: Good that he had slides
[8/19/13 3:14:00 PM] Silvia Silvestri: i really appreciated that the directors attended!
[8/19/13 3:14:18 PM] Ewen Le Borgne: He went on longer than expected and didn't change his research for specific audience e.g. not much about implications of his science
[8/19/13 3:14:34 PM] Ewen Le Borgne: Good that GHG work is increasing at ILRI
[8/19/13 3:14:50 PM] Ewen Le Borgne: Someone going through presentation with him beforehand to transform it into a general public press would have been great
[8/19/13 3:14:59 PM] Ewen Le Borgne: We had a good seminar but not a great one because it wasn't public enough
[8/19/13 3:15:00 PM] Silvia Silvestri: i agree
[8/19/13 3:15:25 PM] Ewen Le Borgne: Tezira: A bit technical - but I got the main message
[8/19/13 3:15:50 PM] Ewen Le Borgne: Angela: Too technical a presentation
[8/19/13 3:16:28 PM] Silvia Silvestri: probably david ment...klaus knows what he is speakign about
[8/19/13 3:16:33 PM] Ewen Le Borgne: - how to develop question checklist to make sure we get some idea about the quality of the speaker (not just ‘oh yes he’s very good’);
o Who is saying that s/he’s a good speaker (has that person also proven their worth at public speaking)?
o What criteria do they give to show that they’re good
o Have they received public praise from external sources about their ability at public speaking?
- Strange to introduce himself as part of the talk – could have done it without the PPT
- The PPT was not very innovatively used
- Difficult to understand for non specialist audiences (too complex)
- Went over 20’ also
[8/19/13 3:16:36 PM] Silvia Silvestri: but this is different from being a good speaker
[8/19/13 3:18:52 PM] Ewen Le Borgne: How many scientists attended? There could have been many more scientists who are not from that team...
[8/19/13 3:19:26 PM] Ewen Le Borgne: ACTION: Ewen to update checklist
[8/19/13 3:19:28 PM] Angeline Nekesa Wafula ILRI: Angeline Nekesa Wafula ILRI added Grace Miceka to this conversation
[8/19/13 3:20:45 PM] Ewen Le Borgne: ACTION: Tezira to ask Jane & Paul to draft a few paras linked to the presentation to put up on ILRI news blog.
[8/19/13 3:20:51 PM] Angeline Nekesa Wafula ILRI: Paul is already working on a posst
[8/19/13 3:21:08 PM] Ewen Le Borgne: ACTION: Angela to ask Paul to work with Jane
[8/19/13 3:21:12 PM] Ewen Le Borgne: (on this)
[8/19/13 3:21:25 PM] Ewen Le Borgne: Christie Peacock
[8/19/13 3:21:49 PM] Ewen Le Borgne: Dear Iain,
Hope you’re keeping well (and surviving the rain!). I am emailing to let you know that Christie Peacock who you know well is coming to Ethiopia in early September, to give a presentation at a meeting of the Ethiopian Veterinary Association. We thought it was a great opportunity for her to come ti ILRI and present the experience to date with Sidai, the livestock products microfranchise that she’s leading in Kenya. I’m hopeful it could have legs in Ethiopia, and so perhaps we could arrange something with FAO, Gates (I know Haddis quite well- and Sidai is Gates-funded) and all the various CG members? What do you think?
[8/19/13 3:22:43 PM] Ewen Le Borgne: ACTION: Ewen to get back to Iain on public speaking skills of Christie
[8/19/13 3:23:09 PM] Ewen Le Borgne: + check on YouTube
[8/19/13 3:24:16 PM] Ewen Le Borgne: ACTION: Ewen to ask Wubalem to help with this
[8/19/13 3:24:53 PM] Ewen Le Borgne: + Ask Tadelle, Simret to help with this
[8/19/13 3:28:33 PM] Ewen Le Borgne: (Ewen reminds everyone that we aim from December onwards at quarterly seminars organized by scientists and we have to think about implications about having more frequent seminars - those can certainly not be tasked to scientists
[8/19/13 3:29:11 PM] Ewen Le Borgne: Silvia thinks quarterly is not sufficient and Susan proposes that we have other seminars as and when 'extra LLTs' but then we have to take charge of these by ourselves
[8/19/13 3:30:08 PM] Ewen Le Borgne: ICRAF is going seminars every Thursday.
[8/19/13 3:30:26 PM] Ewen Le Borgne: If we have fewer of them we might increase in quality...
[8/19/13 3:34:49 PM] Ewen Le Borgne: Silvia: 2 seminars (half of the seminars because the topic is not relevant enough) per year is simply not acceptable
[8/19/13 3:35:19 PM] Ewen Le Borgne: Ewen/Susan: Where we really have to improve is to ensure that the seminar presentations are screened before they happen
[8/19/13 3:37:39 PM] Ewen Le Borgne: Silvia likes the formula and the discussion of the subject as an overview/introduction
[8/19/13 3:39:34 PM] Ewen Le Borgne: Reverse pyramid structure: start with implications of our research and give a bit about the process of coming up to results.
[8/19/13 3:40:10 PM] Silvia Silvestri: do you sk the speaker to leave the room?
[8/19/13 3:40:20 PM] Silvia Silvestri: what about tomatoes? ;-)
[8/19/13 3:40:32 PM] Silvia Silvestri: well mature
[8/19/13 3:41:14 PM] Ewen Le Borgne: We could hand out blue and red papers to find out if people a) understand and b) appreciated.
[8/19/13 3:41:45 PM] Silvia Silvestri: ok, but we need to find a "smart" way to ask this
[8/19/13 3:41:53 PM] Silvia Silvestri: to not upset speakers..
[8/19/13 3:42:31 PM] Silvia Silvestri: but this may be still not enough
[8/19/13 3:42:38 PM] Silvia Silvestri: to speacify the audience
[8/19/13 3:42:46 PM] Silvia Silvestri: by our grand mothers
[8/19/13 3:43:02 PM] Ewen Le Borgne: We need to 'force' in a smart way our speakers to differentiate their presentations for the audience... brief them beforehand. We can give it a try with Christie's
[8/19/13 3:43:36 PM] Ewen Le Borgne: 'Imagine you were giving this seminar on TV'
[8/19/13 3:45:50 PM] Ewen Le Borgne: ACTION: Susan to follow up on organization of the December talk
[8/19/13 3:46:39 PM] Ewen Le Borgne: Possible options: Elisabeth Waithanji in October?
[8/19/13 3:46:48 PM] Ewen Le Borgne: Jemimah: is she coming up?
[8/19/13 3:46:49 PM] Silvia Silvestri: end of october she finishes the contract
[8/19/13 3:49:14 PM] Ewen Le Borgne: Susan: we have to double check whether she can be a good TV speaker
[8/19/13 3:50:52 PM] Silvia Silvestri: yes please seusan
[8/19/13 3:50:57 PM] Ewen Le Borgne: ACTION: Susan to ask Jemimah and Kathy to ask about the public speaking quality. Ewen to ask Nancy Johnson.
[8/19/13 3:51:27 PM] Silvia Silvestri: can we suggested her to give this farewell talk anyway? if not in a LLT
[8/19/13 3:51:47 PM] Silvia Silvestri: ok...good example
[8/19/13 3:52:39 PM] Ewen Le Borgne: Maybe in a year we could have a seminar with Jemimah
[8/19/13 3:52:40 PM] Silvia Silvestri: yes, it makes sense
[8/19/13 3:55:04 PM] Ewen Le Borgne: Other option is 'WonkComms', an initiative of think tank on research communication stemming from ODI and they would love to give a talk
[8/19/13 3:56:13 PM] Ewen Le Borgne: On 18, 19, 20 Sept. Tsehay and Peter B will be in Nairobi for Evelyn's marriage and some Komms Klinics work and we could ask them to give a LLT or an institutional seminar that is not a LLT and/or a roundtable discussion about how to get research into use.
[8/19/13 3:56:21 PM] Ewen Le Borgne: So all this fits together
[8/19/13 3:56:44 PM] Ewen Le Borgne: Susan: shall we go ahead and not call this a LLT but use the same channels or shall we keep it just under the comms group?
[8/19/13 3:58:10 PM] Ewen Le Borgne: Just for Comms perhaps. We could reach out to other Comms folks from other CG centres
[8/19/13 3:58:25 PM] Ewen Le Borgne: This could be even part of Komms Klinics.
[8/19/13 3:59:27 PM] Ewen Le Borgne: So perhaps we make this a roundtable and we make sure we target Comms people but invite others too - quite some scientists might find the 'research into use' theme interesting
[8/19/13 4:02:37 PM] Angeline Nekesa Wafula ILRI: Susan: do you want to look at it before i publish?
[8/19/13 4:03:01 PM] Angeline Nekesa Wafula ILRI: Its on clippings
[8/19/13 4:03:18 PM] Angeline Nekesa Wafula ILRI: its there as as a draft
