Michael Lobsinger’s business card speaks of a man with a global vision. The card is in two languages — English on one side and Chinese on the other.

Now if the globe-trotting CEO of Zi Corporation can only figure out how to get 27 languages on a business card.

Don’t bet against it. His company has already figured out how to squeeze 27 languages into high-tech devices such as mobile phones with its core product known as eZiText.

Lobsinger has a single-minded focus on his business. So much so that when he was asked, during an interview at his downtown office, if he would rather have lunch tomorrow with Bill Gates or Bill Murray, he said with a sage smile: “It depends on what was on the Zi calendar.”

1. What’s the best thing about being the CEO of Zi Corporation?
“I think Zi Corporation is a dynamic, very fast moving company that has international arms. We’re on the cutting edge of technology and we’re truly international. I guess the second most exciting thing is the ability to work with what started out with five people when I first invested in Zi and is now almost 300 people globally.”

2. You’ve made tremendous inroads into China. What’s your secret to tapping that market?
“It took us seven years to really understand the culture. There are relationships that I have now with China in which we never talked business for the first year. They wanted to know who I was, what I was doing there, what did I know about China, how I was going to help China. So it’s very difficult for people to go over there at great expense and not talk business for the first year.”

3. What was it like when you first visited China?
“It can be a shock in terms of acquiring a taste for certain foods. The difficult thing is to understand that they’re giving you the best that they can possibly offer. I’ve been through many evenings drinking mautai, which is their cognac. This is their way of saying welcome.”

4. How is your Chinese?
“I know very little Chinese. I’ve been able to make very good friends in China where I don’t speak Chinese and they don’t speak English. I’ve had many of my friends over to Canada to visit me here at my office and my home, which is the ultimate that you can offer to a friend in China.”

5. How would you describe your business philosophy?
“My business philosophy from the day I was a kid to the way it is today is to be honest, to always take the high road, to have a mission and to never go away from the vision. Business life is tough enough. I think you have to have an ethic and a morality about how you do business and it has to permeate throughout the organization as well as your business relationships.”

6. The foundation of those philosophies?
“I came from a very strong Catholic upbringing, I had very hard-working parents, I had very hard-working grandparents and I assume that some of those attributes are genetic, thank God.”

7. Was your father an entrepreneur?
“My father was a hard-workin’ father of eight kids. He wasn’t so much of an entrepreneur as he was a sales guy that went out, knowing he had to care for eight kids and he did that to the best of his ability.”

8. Who has had the greatest impact on your business life?
“I look to the philosophies that my parents instilled in me as a kid and there have been two or three individuals with private companies that I’ve worked with and had relationships with. And two of them are friends today.”

9. Who are the CEOs that you most admire and respect?
“There’s a number of them, but I’d rather not do that. I’m not trying to fashion myself like anybody else.”

10. Best advice you could offer a budding entrepreneur?
“Don’t go into it unprepared. I get asked all the time: ‘Well, help me in China.’ Well, it only took me seven years to learn how. And I’m still not there. How am I going to explain to you in 10 minutes or 10 hours how to do it when you have to get on a plane and go do it yourself?”

11. How do you cope with the wild roller-coaster ride of a stock price that has fluctuated from the $1 to $60 range in just over a year?
“You have the market forces at work where some people want your stock to go down and some people want your stock to go up. You’re trying to build something and you’ve got people out there that don’t know anything about your company and they’re trying to knock it down.”

12. You’re referring to the chat-board mania?
“Yes, they want to short your stock and profit that way. They use the Internet and misinformation and put stories out there that are fear-mongering and challenging to the company and the rules and regulations of the stock market are such that we can’t respond to that.”

13. This is a very serious issue in your mind?
“There’s kids out there and all they want to do is knock your stock down or have fun. I don’t watch those boards because the people that really want to talk to me can find me and the people who want the correct information can contact the company.”

14. What can be done about it?
“I’ve suggested to the securities commissions that they make the authors of information on the chatrooms accountable the same way the CEO or the staff member of a company is. If a person puts their conjecture, or their misinformation, even if they thought it was correct information, they should be accountable for it.”

15. The most daunting challenge you’ve faced?
“I think the biggest difficulty was creating and convincing investment capital to come in prior to having any real sales. The most difficult thing has been to try and manage the expectations of a marketplace that has changed from six months ago where a guy in a garage with a vision could get funding as a high-tech new-generation company to where the pendulum has changed to where it is now: ‘What are your earnings?’ Luckily for us, we have financed ourselves where we have an excess of $50 million in the bank and we have no debt. Luckily enough, we’re turning the corner from going from an R&D (research and development) company to a, hopefully, profitable company by 2001.”

16. Was assuming the reins of Zi in 1993 an easy decision?
“No. I’ve been a self-employed entrepreneur all my life. This started out to be an investment and when I saw the window of opportunity and the need for management expertise, I went with it. I did change horses in mid-stream and I did sell off my private companies. And now I spend just approximately 150 per cent of my time with Zi.”

17. Considering your global expansion, will your head office remain in Calgary?
“I think Calgary is a great place to do business and it has a great quality of life. To manage a global operation out of Calgary can be done in today’s economy. I have many friends who thought I lived in Hong Kong I’ve been there so often.”

18. How does travelling the globe suit you?
“When you travel a couple of hundred days a year, it’s not for the glory. It’s hard work. I’ve taken my wife to Hong Kong twice and she has seen more of Hong Kong than I have and I’ve been there 35 times.”

19. Do you see yourself in this chair 10 years from now?
“That’s an unfair question. I will be here until I can make a difference. When I can’t make a difference any more, I won’t be here.”

20. Does the job wear you down at times?
“Oh, you know I’ll never admit that. The stock will go down!”

THE COMPANY: Zi Corporation

* Brass: Michael Lobsinger, CEO; Gary Kovacs, president; George Tai, COO.
* Industry: Provider of embedded software technology and educational products and services. The core product is eZiText, which connects people to powerful applications in 27 languages. Oztime.com is a subsidiary of Zi that is China’s first educational software provider.
* Employees: 300 internationally (60 in Calgary office), with offices also in Beijing, Hong Kong, Shenzhen, San Francisco and Stockholm.
* Recent stock price (ZIC-TSE): $11.50 (also trades on Nasdaq under ZICA).
* Web site: www.zicorp.com
* Address: #300-500 4th Ave. S.W.
* Phone: 233-8875.

IN PROFILE: Michael Lobsinger

* Born/Raised/Age: Saskatoon, Saskatchewan; 50.
* Title: CEO, Zi Corporation (since 1993).
* Education: University of Saskatchewan, Bachelor of Commerce, Bachelor of Arts (history, political science).
* Claim to fame: Guided Zi from a company with five employees in 1993 to a global concern of 300 employees; earned praise in business community for success in cracking the massive Chinese market and other international markets.