This is a great article in BusinessWeek which asks some famous entrepreneurs like Huge Hefner, Richard Branson, and other marquee-name entrepreneurs on what inspires them.

Entrepreneurs’ Heroes

Who inspires the inspired? How do some of the most successful entrepreneurs view their own innovations? What is the best piece of advice they ever received?

Here are two great things I got from Anita.  First, an excellent article on how to win business awards — you should read this.  And it is my first time to go to this site Work.com which features over at housand articles on how to manage a business better.

How to Win a Business Award | How-to Guides for running your business from Work.com

Want to put your business on the map and get free PR? Try applying for business awards.

Awards and recognitions for your business are more than just vanity. Awards are excellent for triggering positive PR and media coverage. They validate your success, and can be highly motivating to you and to your employees.

Microsoft’s program is helping employees lose weight — the upside is that there are 20% less in medical claims, and employees are more productive and happier.

More Micro, Less Soft

Steve Ballmer hates it when Microsoft loses. But for the screamingly competitive CEO, there is one single, glaring exception: the 61,100 pounds that have vanished from the bodies of 2,152 Microsoft Corp. (MSFT ) employees since 2002.

How long will it be for blogging to stay hot?  According to Technorati (as per BusinessWee), almost half have not been updated the last three months.  Make no mistake — blogging, or at least good blogging requires time and effort — is it worth it?

What Entrepreneurs Need to Know

The latest data from blog searcher Technorati shows that nearly half of all blogs are inactive—not updated in at least three months. Since Technorati defines “active” as updating at least once every three months, it seems clear that some of the 55% that technically qualify as active are at best marginally active.

Business is still good for the outfits that create and host blogs, as 100,000 of the web logs continue to be created every day. But as these data suggest, it makes sense to think past the initial enthusiasm of doing a blog and imagine whether you’ll still have the same enthusiasm six months or a year down the road

One of the world’s most famous entrepreneurs is Donald Trump. I don’t necessarily agree with the way he does things, but you must admit that he is effective, and of course very American ( which means that many Asians may find him too abrasive and confrontational (grin)).

Recently, he opened Trump University to teach people business and entrepreneur skills. I see that it might have been another one of his promotional schemes, but nevertheless here is a free course that you want to look at which is on the topic, How to Find Start-Up Funding. This is a roughly 40 minute free course with videos and course materials.

There ARE good stuff that you might want to look at there - AND understanding whether to use debt or equity financing is a good principle to understand especially when starting up a business.