Directorate / ILRI / Kenya / Official

The view from Iain’s office – August 2017

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Twenty-fifth anniversary conference of the Ethiopian Society of Animal Production

The Ethiopian Society of Animal Production (ESAP) celebrated its 25th anniversary with a conference at Haramaya University on 24–25 August. The society has played a key role in research and in the development of the livestock sector in Ethiopia. It was an honour for me to present a keynote address on ‘The role of livestock in achieving the sustainable development goals’ during the first session of the conference. ILRI was very well represented and ILRI staff played key roles in organizing the conference, in chairing sessions and presenting papers. Several ILRI staff and consultants received awards.

ESAP Founders/Leadership Award

  • Azage Tegegne
  • Getachew Gebru
  • Solomon Gizaw
  • Solomon Desta (ILRI consultant)

ESAP Long-Service Award

  • Tadelle Dessie
  • Solomon Gizaw

ESAP Young Professional Award

  • Kefena Effa
  • Getnet Mekuriaw – Biosciences eastern and central Africa (BecA)-ILRI Hub

ESAP Exceptional and Outstanding Service Award  

  • Azage Tegegne
  • Getachew Gebru (ILRI consultant)

I also want to congratulate Workneh Ayalew of icipe and Aynalem Haile of the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA), both former ILRI employees, on receiving the ESAP Long-Service Award.

In addition, Siboniso Moyo accepted an institutional award to ILRI for its unreserved support to ESAP. The award ‘recognized institutions that have consistently supported ESAP financially, materially, technically to ensure it remains a vibrant professional society for the last two and half decades’.

Many congratulations to the staff who were awarded and to all ILRI staff, past and present, who have contributed to and supported ESAP over the last 25 years.

To email or not to email?

How many emails do you receive in a day? I get several hundred. But how many of these do I need to receive?  Probably only about one third of them. Why do I get so many emails? The dreaded ‘Reply All’ button!

We seem to have a culture in ILRI of clicking the ‘Reply All’ button even when it is unnecessary. Let me give you an example. Recently I was copied in an email among some staff members who were arranging a Skype call with a collaborator. Being copied in the email was useful to know that the call was being arranged. However, there then followed a string of 14 emails trying to identify a suitable date and time. I did not need to know and did not want to know when the call was to take place. Why should I receive 14 emails about the time of a meeting that I was not attending?  I said ‘recently I was copied in an email…..’ but in fact I should say ‘every day I am copied in more than 100 emails that are of absolutely no interest to me and have no information of any value to me.’

Next time you reply to an email look at the ‘To’ and ‘Cc’ fields and ask yourself if everyone in those lists needs to be there. If not, delete their address before replying or if only the sender needs to see your response use the ‘Reply’ button.

My guess is that if everyone did this we would reduce emails by between a third and a half.

Till next month.

Iain