GALO: In your career as professor, what institution are you affiliated with, and what is your focus as a teacher?

MSB: I work for the Berlin School of Economics and Law. And my specialization is Business Informatics. It’s like computer science, computer science for business, but I teach relatively little now because I am also the head of e-learning and my research, and all of my time goes into directing e-learning for the school. The Berlin School of Economics and Law is Germany’s largest business school, so basically I’m a business school professor. I also teach courses online. And like most schools we want to do a lot more in the e-learning mode. So my role in the school is to pave the way toward that future. It’s clear that e-learning is going to be of much greater importance in the future than it is now.

In my class the students don’t write papers anymore they blog and create websites and stuff like that, which would have been completely unheard of even five years ago. I started with that because I’m one of the original developers of the World Wide Web — a physicist.

GALO: Right. I wanted to ask how exactly you were involved with that–that’s quite an accomplishment.

MSB: It was a historical moment and I stood nearby, let’s say, I think that’s more accurate. I was a physicist, a young physicist, doing my PhD in Hamburg at The Deutsches Elektronen Synchrotron (DESY), a particle accelerator lab, and I was in a situation which many physicists at the time were in, namely I was collaborating with people at large distances like the US and we needed to share information and later what would be called ‘links,’ so through my activity I got interested in anything new in long distance communication. In effect, I think I taught the first distance-learning course over the Web in 1992. I started something called Diversity University, which was a virtual reality based university place. I started something with a guy from Texas called Globe Wide Network University, which was a catalog of all the available distance courses at the time. I think I started the first virtual library. But nobody knew why this would be so important ten years later or five years later. It was something I did as a graduate student. All the interesting things happen when you’re a graduate student. So all of a sudden, the Web was there and I found myself as being one of ten people who had this very, very special knowledge in the world.

GALO: Might there ever be a situation or possibility do you think of a move to the USA?

MSB: I would think about it but I’m a tenured professor here in Berlin. So all I could do is probably get a temporary assignment, unless I wanted to completely move to New York, but I don’t have any plans in that direction. But I will definitely come again. I love New York.

GALO: I’m a fan of Andy Warhol and saw that you quoted him as saying, “Good business is the best art.” Could you explain what that means to you and are you a fan too?

MSB: He [Andy] liked making money, and thought highly of making money, and so do I. And that’s rather unusual in Europe; in America you would find a great number of fans for that kind of view. And I think, even among artists or non-business people in America, people wouldn’t shake their heads they would think, ‘yeah, money is an important thing — the basic fluid.’ But in Europe [and] England, money, business and art, are very separate things. To begin with, it’s not a habit in Europe for the rich to support the arts. It’s the State who supports the arts, and the people indirectly through the National Lottery. The National Lottery is a big supporter of the arts but the rich people in Europe basically keep their money to themselves. They don’t chip in. The rich do pay much higher taxes, so indirectly they pay for the arts too. So in other words saying “business is the best art,” is a much more contentious topic in Europe than it is in the US.

I’m very much so a fan of Warhol’s art. My favorite piece is this wonderful pop art photo of Debbie Harry (Blondie) it’s always on my mind when I think of Andy Warhol. It’s interesting how the perception of someone like Warhol has changed over the decades. Another guy who I really love is–who is quite similar but sort of a European version of Andy Warhol–Joseph Beuys. I mean, people who basically took up areas of life to an artistic perspective that hadn’t been considered artistic at all.

GALO: What interests or hobbies kept you busy as a teenager and what kind of student were you?

MSB: My father was a great collector. He collected absolutely everything with great precision and passion, and so I think I was an anti-collector. When I was a teenager, I wanted to be an actor. I went to acting school very, very briefly until my dad put so much pressure on me to be in science. He wanted me in science and so I basically did what he wanted. And from a relatively early age, I shaped myself according to his picture of me as a scientist. I suppressed the inner artist very thoroughly from my teenage years through pretty late in life. The only exception is music. As a scientist, you know, a mathematician, a theoretical physicist; you were allowed to dabble in music because most mathematicians are musical. I played piano and studied composition a little bit and even taught at Trinity College of Music in London for a year.

GALO: Beatles or Rolling Stones?

MSB: Damn. I thought you were going to ask Star Trek or Star Wars! I don’t know, both. I probably know the Beatles a lot better. I think it would have to be Beatles. Because the Stones are just too obscene because all I can think about is ‘stoned’ and Mick Jagger’s way to swing his hips. But when I think of Beatles, I think of peace and love and music. Very quickly I think of music. So I think musically the Beatles have a lot more to offer. But you ask me is it Beatles or Rolling Stones, I would probably answer it [has] to be Pink Floyd – ‘cause that’s real music in my view!

GALO: With all that’s on your plate how and when do you acquire the energy needed to carry on at your pace?

MSB: It’s a very natural level of energy that I have. And I’m shedding stuff. This year, I mean next year, I’m giving up the executive coaching I’ve done for the last ten years. I’m giving that up, so I’m reducing slowly to find more time for writing because I really, really, really want to finish a decent novel in 2012. That’s my next goal.

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