New York City and Abilene, Texas, are both classified as major cities, though they're drastically different in a couple of ways.

One is population. New York has 8.3 million residents, while Abilene has 116,000, barely above the 100,000-person threshold for big-city status.

Another is traffic. Abilene is the nation's best major city for commuters, while New York is the worst, according to a new On Numbers study.

Fifty-eight percent of Abilene's workers drive from home to their jobs in less than 15 minutes. That's twice the national average of 28.7 percent.

1. "It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change." - Charles Darwin

2. "Change before you have to." - Jack Welch

3. "People don't resist change. They resist being changed!" - Peter Senge

4. "Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself." - Leo Tolstoy

5. "The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking." - Albert Einstein

I’ve always said that startups are all about execution. Sometimes I encounter self-proclaimed entrepreneurs who have been “thinking” about a concept for many years, and haven’t started yet. Some of these may be visionaries, but none are real entrepreneurs.

Entrepreneurs live by the principles discussed by Leonard A. Schlesinger, President of Babson College, in his book titled “Action Trumps Everything” which he wrote in conjunction with friends Charlie Kiefer and Paul Brown. In it he explains how the power of entrepreneurial action helps people create what they want in an uncertain world.

One of these principles is that action trumps thinking, when the future in unpredictable. This one caught my eye, since the future of everything for startups these days is unpredictable. Here are some of his key reasons that I can relate to on this one:

If you have a good idea that could be turned into viable business, Arizona may have $250,000 for you.

As part of its efforts to create more jobs, the Arizona Commerce Authority this year will double the total amount of innovation grants it will award to small businesses to $3 million.

The idea is to create more home-grown businesses, speed up the commercialization of inventions and help small businesses in hopes they someday will become larger employers. It is an economic-development concept that has grown popular throughout the country.

Startups seem to be growing faster now than ever.

For example, it took Path's first version one year to reach 1,000,000 downloads. Now, less than two months after its relaunch, the app has been downloaded 2,000,000 times (it's also a much better app this time around).

Fab's first iteration was a failure, but since its relaunch in April it reached 1 million users no sweat.

We looked at today's hottest startups and found when they crossed the 1,000,000 user or download milestone. We also through in a few big tech companies like Facebook and Twitter for the sake of comparison.

I just read about a company that is on its third pivot. When is enough is enough?

The founder is young and sharp. He'd be a valuable asset at any other tech company, but he can't seem to throw in the towel.

Some pivots, of course, work.  Path is a great example.  So are Fab and Turntable. But most don't.

So what's a smart, young entrepreneur to do when they realize their startup is failing? When should they call it quits and crawl back to corporate America? Or at least to someone else's successful startup?

An Olympic games, a U.S. presidential election and the end of the world are already planned for 2012, but we’re more excited about the startups.

Here are six of them (in no particular order) that we expect to help define the coming year. We chose companies based on the momentum they gained in 2011, promising new takes on old problems and, in one case, the possibility of an IPO.

Biotech pilgrims are gathering today for the biggest industry frenzy of the year, the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference. This confab in San Francisco’s Union Square is the singular place each year where essentially all industry mover/shakers—and many wannabes—gather for a marathon week of investment scouting, dealmaking, publicity seeking, job-hunting, and schmoozing.

I’ve been going to this conference for at least seven or eight years (but who’s counting?) and look forward to meeting lots of interesting people and digging up all kinds of news every year. It’s the best time to meet industry players face-to-face, and hear about the latest trends at work, in an action-packed few days. Most everybody here is brimming with optimism—or least putting on their best game face—about how they’re going to make new drugs, devices, or diagnostics that will leap tall buildings with a single bound in the coming 12 months.

Entrepreneurs and business leaders each have their place in the business world. It's the entrepreneur that forges the path and the leader that turns it into a highway. Even more rare, is the entrepreneurial leader that changes our world. Think Steve Jobs (Apple), Yvon Chouinard (Patagonia), Herb Kelleher (Southwest Airlines), Bill Gates (Microsoft), Henry Ford (Ford Motor Co.), Sam Walton (Walmart), and dozens of others. Those entrepreneurs not only changed our lives but changed life as we know it.

So how do you join the ranks of entrepreneurial leaders? First, let's look at the difference between leaders and entrepreneurs. Answer the following questions and see how you stack up. Remember, there's no right or wrong.

Don't be fooled by baby-faced Mark Zuckerberg: Contrary to popular opinion, 20-somethings aren't the only ones responsible for successful startups these days. Sure, we may be obsessed with youth, but don't forget, it's also wasted on the young, which is why a growing number of people are starting businesses in their 50s, 60s and even 70s. For baby boomers, with newfound free time and either financial freedom or financial insecurity on their hands, the entrepreneurial path has become more appealing, more viable and more rewarding.

"When people become middle-aged, they have experience, knowledge, savings -- they just have this fire in the belly to create something, to make it big before they retired," says Vivek Wadhwa, an academic, writer and entrepreneur. "They worry if they don't start something now, they'll be left out, so they take the plunge."

I purged one phrase from my vocabulary this year: new media (I now start with “digital”). What’s so new about 10-year-old blogs?

Now, I’m nixing another phrase and you should, too. The term is mobile health. Let’s always call the medical revolution digital health, dump the mobile and keep moving forward.

We’re days away from the Consumer Electronics Show and its accompanying Digital Health Summit. So it’s the perfect time to build consensus. Digital is all encompassing: from big data to apps to electronic medical records to whatever comes next.

Despite all the stories you’ve heard, the hardest part of working from home isn’t putting on pants every day.

I’ve been working from home, a few different homes, since late 2007. And the biggest thing I've learned during those four years is that working from home doesn’t have to change how you get work done, but it does change nearly everything else about your gig. When there are hard, regular deadlines and a constant flow of work, it is just like being at an office--with the added advantage that nobody else is there to interrupt my train of thought with an impromptu visit. And then there were times when I nearly broke down and told the boss the truth about why that weeklong project was in such sad shape: Because just when I need to focus it becomes clear that there are a lot of interesting links to look at on the Internet. Like this one.

Are companies more innovative than ever before? Judging from the vast number of Fortune 500 companies professing their commitment to innovation, the answer is yes.

But we sense that the more a company talks, thinks, and strategizes about innovation, the less real, big innovation it produces. Take the electronics maker Philips, which introduced one of the world’s first electronic razors, the compact cassette, the CD, and many other game-changing inventions. In more recent years, Philips has been a fixture at innovation and design conferences, presenting impressive strategies, road maps, and processes. The company commands impressive sales--its market cap is about $15 billion--but most people would be hard-pressed to think of a recent exciting breakthrough from the Dutch company. Nokia, also a self-proclaimed innovation leader, is another example of a company that has been very good at innovation strategizing but not so good at following through on its promise.

The biggest challenge colleges face when designing new mobile services is a tendency to overplan, argues Cindy Bixler, chief information officer of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. The Tech Therapy team explores the challenges colleges face as the number of students and professors carrying smartphones and tablets grows.

Download this recording as an MP3 file, or subscribe to Tech Therapy on iTunes.

Each month, The Chronicle’s Tech Therapy podcast offers analysis of and advice on what the latest gadgets and buzzwords mean for professors, administrators, and students. Join hosts Jeff Young, The Chronicle’s technology editor, and Warren Arbogast, a technology consultant who works with colleges, for a lively discussion—as well as interviews with leading thinkers in technology.

Welcome to 2012 – a year which, without any official proclamation, will likely be an excellent year for entrepreneurs. In so many respects, advocates in 2011 for startups and entrepreneurs could not have done better in setting up 2012. Better data, more relevant policy and legislation, streamlined programming and more widespread public support should give all reason to be optimistic that more people will take a risk, unleash an idea and make a job. And we should expect even more new developments that will shape even better entrepreneurship ecosystems across the world.

Research and legislation designed to support startups In 2011, the Kauffman Foundation released data pointing to a "jobs leak" – new businesses have been starting up with fewer workers than historic norms and are also adding fewer workers as they grow. This type of data, alongside initiatives such as Global Entrepreneurship Week/USA and Startup America, escalated attention from opinion leaders that has helped guide policy reforms conducive to real economic growth, starting with Kauffman´s own Rules for Growth (January 2011) and Startup Act policy recommendations (July 2011). The year ended with several examples of action by policymakers including a Startup Act of 2011 bill (S. 1965) introduced last month by U.S. Senators Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) and Mark Warner (D-Va.) in December.

Fewer venture firms raised more money during 2011, and the money is being concentrated in the hands of fewer firms, according to the National Venture Capital Association. The venture capital industry group reports that 38 U.S. venture capital funds received $5.6 billion in the fourth quarter of 2011; but only nine of those were new funds,the data released Monday from the NVCA shows.

In 2011, 169 venture firms raised $18.17 billion from limited partners such as university endowments and pension funds. In 2010 the same number of firms raised only $13.78 billion– or 30 percent less. While more money would mean good news, but that isn’t the case.  The number of startups looking for money has gone up sharply. An active angel community and early stage investors that can put money in early stage deals, means entrepreneurs has helped many startups set-up shop. They are likely to face their biggest fundraising challenge at the Series B round, a problem that has been mounting.

By 2020, the Pentagon could lose nearly $1 trillion. This has the potential to affect more businesses than those devoted to government contracting.

What do AOL, Silicon Valley, and the Internet have in common? They all owe their existence to the Pentagon.

The federal government’s military funding has produced innovations that affect everyday consumers—as well as ordinary businesses and entrepreneurs. Just try to imagine your company without the Web. (You wouldn’t be reading this story, for starters.)

So now to try to picture what might happen to innovation—and to a sea of government contractors—if the U.S. goes through with a series of military budget cuts over the next decade. The Pentagon stands to lose roughly nearly $1 trillion by 2020, according to The New York Times, due both to President Obama’s planned deficit reduction and the bipartisan supercommittee’s failure to reach a decision in November.

COMMENTARY I don't know about you, but when I'm watching a football game where the kicker is about to attempt a field goal to win the game, my hands grip the chair, I hold my breath, and I wonder what's going through the guy's mind.

When Michigan's Brendan Gibbons nailed a 37-yard field goal to win the Sugar Bowl in overtime, guess what was going through his mind? Brunette girls. No kidding, that's what inspires the guy. And it works.

We can't all be great athletes, so some of us have to "win the big game," so to speak, with our intuition, our ideas. Which brings us to a subject of much confusion and debate in the business world. What inspires "big idea" people? Asked another way, where do big ideas come from?

Undergraduate Dean Dennis Hanno is leading a team of 50 undergraduate and graduate students, staff, and faculty to Ghana to teach entrepreneurship to high school students and other learners and to start new initiatives within the community.

The program, begun more than ten years ago by Hanno while he was at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, has grown from 12 student participants creating a computer center in a village church, to dozens of participants from Babson teaching business basics to over 1000 Ghanaian learners from elementary school age to adult.

People develop, not places. That's my mantra heading into 2012. My plan for the new year is to work out the details of the theory and then figure out what that means for economic development projects. A corollary to that slogan is move to improve:

“The shifting balance of global economic growth is bring global migration flows with it,” says Madeleine Sumption, policy analyst at the Washington-based Migration Policy Institute. “We're seeing lower migration to crisis nations, whereas most of the growth is towards developing nations.”