Articles by: Peter Baer
About: Peter Baer
Mr. Baer is the Co-founder of Twigmore Inc. Prior to that he was Vice President at Warner Bros. Domestic Television Distribution where he was responsible for the licensing of motion picture and television content as well as the company's branded entertainment efforts. At Warner Bros, he also managed pay-per-view, video-on-demand and digital initiatives. Mr. Baer has held positions at CBS Radio as Vice President Sales & Marketing and Executive Vice President at LockStream Corporation, a copy protection, anti-piracy and digital rights management company. He holds an MBA in Finance and International Business from NYU's Stern School of Business and a BA in English Literature from Trinity College in Hartford, CT. He sits on the Board of Directors of Relevantis, Inc. and is a Co-chair of the Hassenfeld Committee, the New York City Children's Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders at NYU Medical Center.
Twigmore Releases Alpha of Self Improvement App!
Posted by Peter Baer on Friday, 14 May 2010
We recently released an alpha of the Twigmore Facebook app. You can access it from the Twigmore home page. It is meant to help insight seekers quickly find proven thought leaders in a topic of interest. Once you’ve found a thought leader you want to learn from, we’re planning to provide the tools for you to connect with them (starting with video). Love your feedback and don’t forget to post your twigs!
Posted in: Human Interest, Twigmore Company, Web/Technology | Tagged: career thought leaders, discover aha moments, discover insights, entrepreneur thought leaders, finding health thought leaders, finding thought leaders, relationship thought leaders, self-improvement app, self-improvement thought leaders, self-improvement webcast, twigmore facebook app | No Comments
Slowdown in Economy Leads to Bartering Professional Services
Posted by Peter Baer on Tuesday, 27 April 2010
Interesting NY Post article on people in NYC using their skills as currency. One woman used yoga and pilates sessions to ‘purchase’ everything from logo development to photographs for her web site. She even bartered for squash lessons for her two children. Even the city itself is getting into the act. Just this month the Bloomberg administration launched a time-banking initiative, as part of a larger effort to encourage volunteerism. This ties in nicely with Twigmore’s vision to help people find, connect and twig from thought leaders (e.g. think of us connecting a thought leader on nutrition with one on relationships).
Posted in: How To | Tagged: bartering consulting services, bartering economy, bartering in nyc, bartering in recession, bartering professional services, new york time-banking initiative, nyc time-banking initiative, ourgoods.org, time-banking | No Comments
New Advisor Nisreen Shocair
Posted by Peter Baer on Thursday, 11 March 2010
Twigmore would like to welcome Nisreen Shocair as an advisor. She is the President of Virgin Megastore for the Middle East (VMME). Nisreen has built the Virgin brand across the region by incorporating local and international consumption trends into the shopping experience. She has also held positions at Blockbuster Entertainment, Sony Music, Bertelsmann AG and Hearst Entertainment. We’re looking forward to her input on everything from brand building to addressing international markets.
Posted in: Twigmore Company | Tagged: nisreen shocair, virgin megastore | No Comments
New Advisor Dr. Vanessa Dennen
Posted by Peter Baer on Wednesday, 10 March 2010
Twigmore would like to welcome Vanessa Dennen as an advisor. She is an Associate Professor in the Department of Educational Psychology and Learning Systems at Florida State University. As a researcher, Vanessa studies online discourse and communities of practice. Her primary teaching areas include program evaluation, learning theory and designing interactive courseware. She has a Ph.D. in Instructional Systems Technology and an M.S. in Educational Psychology (Learning & Cognition, Inquiry) from Indiana University. We couldn’t be happier to have her involved in the company.
Posted in: Twigmore Company | Tagged: educational psychology, florida state university, vanessa dennen | No Comments
New Advisor Lloyd Bromberg
Posted by Peter Baer on Tuesday, 9 March 2010
Twigmore would like to welcome Lloyd Bromberg as an adviser. Most recently he was the Director of School Programs for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Lloyd also served as Director of Social Studies and Director of Staff Development for the New York City Public Schools. His experience will be invaluable in helping us develop our service. We are very excited to have him on board and look forward to working together.
Posted in: Twigmore Company | Tagged: federal-reserve-bank, lloyd-bomberg, new-york-city-department-of-education, new-york-city-public-schools, twigmore.com | No Comments
Federal Effort to Push Junk Food from Public Schools
Posted by Peter Baer on Monday, 8 February 2010
NY Times article says the Obama administration will begin a drive this week to expel Pepsi, french fries and Snickers bars from the nation’s schools in hopes of reducing the number of children who get fat during their school years. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack says that any vending machines that remain in schools should be “filled with nutritious offerings to make the healthy choice the easy choice for our nation’s children.” We think it’s interesting that Georgia Republican Saxby Chambliss is involved, given the fact that Coca Cola is based in his home state.
Posted in: Human Interest, Politics | Tagged: arne duncan, barack obama, ny times, public school | No Comments
Yale Faces $150 Million Deficit, Forced to Make Cuts
Posted by Peter Baer on Friday, 5 February 2010
NY Times article on Yale University announcing that it’s planning a number of steps to close a remaining $150 million budget gap, including cutting staff, freezing salaries for deans and officers, reducing the number of graduate students — even turning down all thermostats to 68 degrees. Richard C. Levin, Yale’s president, and Peter Salovey, its provost, said the measures are necessary because of the drop in the endowment to $16.3 billion last June from its peak of $22.9 billion in June 2008. Many other elite universities have been affected by the economic downturn as well.
Posted in: Human Interest | Tagged: education, school, university, yale | No Comments
Apple iPad vs Kindle DX: Which is Better for Education?
Posted by Peter Baer on Tuesday, 2 February 2010
Interesting PCWorld blog on the pluses and minuses of each device. The author points out that if the iPad doesn’t succeed as a consumer electronics device–its initial target market–it may find a successful second career as an electronic textbook reader. The fledgling e-textbook market looks promising, and there’s little competition right now aside from the Kindle DX, which has undergone a few university trials in recent months, including one at Princeton University. It seems likely that new technologies like these will be useful in educating more efficiently.
Posted in: Web/Technology | Tagged: ipad, kindle, pcworld, princeton, technology | No Comments
Experts Say a Rewrite of Nation’s Main Education Law Will Be Hard
Posted by Peter Baer on Friday, 29 January 2010
NY Times article on President Obama holding out the hope of overhauling the main law outlining the federal role in public schools. Since it was put in its current form by the second Bush administration — and renamed No Child Left Behind — it has generated frequent and very divisive debate, partly because it requires schools to administer far more standardized tests and because it labels schools that fail to make progress fast enough each year as “needing improvement.” That category draws penalties and has grown to include more than 30,000 schools. There doesn’t seem to be any way this will get done prior to the November elections. Hopefully next year the Republicans and Democrats will put politics aside and work together to improve the school system.
Posted in: Politics | Tagged: arne duncan, department of education, ny times, public school, secretary of education | No Comments
New Program Combines Technology and Community Service
Posted by Peter Baer on Thursday, 28 January 2010
e School News piece on students putting their tech skills to work in the community through the Service & Technology Academic Resource Team (START) program. The program, launched by the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) and Microsoft Corp., aims to create a new kind of collaboration between students and teachers through technology-focused service learning. Partnerships between companies like Microsoft and the US public school system make a lot of sense.
Posted in: Web/Technology | Tagged: department of education, education, microsoft, technology | No Comments