Women have a problem; there I've said it, I've got it out in the open at last - a bit risky for me on International Women's Day, but it's done. Their problem, of course, is men. Men have dominated society for thousands of years, resulting in a bias in thinking. For instance, it is popularly thought that men can navigate and that women can't read maps. The problem, actually, is that society has preferred activities for males which lead to better spatial awareness. Until relatively recently, for instance, women were discouraged from football, a game that requires considerable spatial awareness skills. It's not that women can't read maps, it's just that men have prevented them from gaining the psychological ability to do it

So, what has all this to do with making money on the internet, I hear you ask. Well, it's about your brain. New research from the University of California shows that the production of brain waves known as a "theta rhythm" are fundamental to things like memory and the overall health of our brains. And guess what produces lots of theta rhythms? That's right, activities that involve spatial awareness. In other words, it seems that the bias of society has not been helping women make the best of their brain power.

And that's bad. It's bad because a study on the amount of money we earn shows it is linked to our brain power. Women continue to earn less than men, on average, often for equivalent jobs. These studies suggest that there may be a reason; the male dominated society we live in has been restricting the brains of women. But fear not, women know more than we think they do.

They do things which help keep their theta waves active and thereby boost their brains. It's not just spatial awareness that keeps your brain healthy. Relaxation, meditation and learning are all activities which have been shown to boost theta wave production. Go along to any relaxation classes, or meditation rooms and you'll find them full of women. Try looking in at your local adult education centre and the same is true, a preponderance of women. They are busy producing more and more theta waves, boosting their brains, while men carry on working, with little impact on their brain power.

We are now witnessing the impact of all this online. Women dominate the social web; only one social site, Digg, has more men than women using it. The others are either split 50-50, or have more women users than men. And where is real money being made online these days? You guessed it, via the social web. Perhaps the theta-induced female brain is more at home online than the male brain? Who knows?

What is clear is that there is a potential relationship between generating more theta waves and earning more money, particularly online. So, how can you make more money with your internet presence - especially if you are not female? Well, the first thing is learn to relax more. You can take up meditation as well. And, importantly, learn something. Go to evening classes and take up whatever takes your fancy - pottery, local history, or crochet - it doesn't matter. What is important is that you activate your brain into learning mode.

When you learn more, relax more and meditate you will produce more of those theta waves that boost your brain power. In turn, you develop greater clarity of thought, which inevitably means you will be able to solve all those online glitches and difficulties more easily. And that should translate into more money.

Often, too many people focus on their website and then can't really identify the issues causing things like poor conversion rates, or lack of traffic. Taking time away from your website, doing things which create all those extra theta waves in your brain could well be the solution. Spatial awareness activities like football, orienteering, or navigating in a car rally will help, but perhaps today of all days men should take a few tips from women by taking up relaxation, meditation and continuous learning. After all, women are increasingly in charge online. If you're a man and you want to catch up. do what women do to their brains. And don't worry you'll lose your map reading skills - there's SatNav these days...!

James Cameron may have created the world's most successful movie with Avatar, but the merging of a real person with their "other world" fake, may not be as far fetched as it sounds. The notion in the film that a personality could exist in two different individuals - one real, the other an avatar - might seem the stuff of fiction, but as new research being conducted at Stanford University shows, those unreal, fake beings are affecting our behaviour. In other words, we are reacting to those non-real representations of people (avatars) as if they were real. They are projecting their "personalities" onto us in some way.

That might sound spooky - and actually makes the movie Avatar look rather out of date now - but it could have potentially brilliant applications. Indeed, your online business could already benefit.

According to research being conducted by communications expert Jesse Fox, people are responding to avatars and changing their behaviour as a result of what they see. In one study, individuals who saw an avatar on a treadmill led to them doing more exercise, if that avatar looked like them. Equally, when people saw an avatar that looked like themselves become thinner on screen, they subsequently exercised more - perhaps in some kind of bid to look like their avatar.

What this research suggests is two things. Firstly, there could be practical value in using avatars made in your own likeness. For instance, if you want to write more blogs, get an avatar that looks like you to do loads of blogging inside something like Second Life and the chances are you will become more motivated to blog yourself.

The second thing the research implies is the powerful impact of personal visualisation. One of the biggest differences between top athletes and very good athletes is in their ability to visualise. The Gold Medal winners can actually "see" themselves winning the race, for instance. Whereas, the not-so-good athlete merely hopes they can get through that tape. The same is true in business; the most successful entrepreneurs are those who have tremendous powers of visualisation such that they can actually see themselves looking at their product's sales graph in the future. The rest of us, merely predict that will happen - somewhat hopefully.

The avatar, when it looks like us, is clearly enhancing our powers of visualisation. Because the image we see on the computer screen is "us" we can then see ourselves performing in some way and it is therefore much easier for us to achieve that in the real world because we have already "seen ourselves" doing it. Without the avatar, many people are probably unable to complete the visualisation process for themselves.

So, it might well be worthwhile popping yourself onto Second Life, creating an avatar that looks like you and getting it doing the things you have always dreamed of. When you watch your online self doing that, there is a much greater chance you will do it here in the real world. And if you don't want to go that far, why not get someone to video you blogging at your computer? Then play back that video as you will then be able to see yourself blogging - and this new research implies that this could do the trick in getting you to blog more frequently as it will help your visualise yourself typing away more easily.

Most people do not have brilliant powers of personal visualisation. This Stanford research project shows that avatars can help us boost those powers - and alter oour real world behaviour as a result. It suggests that whatever improvements you want to make in your business, something that increases your ability to visualise your future behaviour is well worth trying.

Business owners frequently worry about their competition; that's understandable. However, sometimes people focus on the wrong competition. After all, consider for a moment who the biggest competitor to, say Vodafone might be. Is it Orange, T-Mobile or, perhaps, O2? Wrong; it's Twitter. The obvious competitors are the other phone companies, but if you think about the main activity which happens on mobile phones - sending text messages - then Twitter becomes a real threat to that business.

Often, businesses focus on the obvious competition, but don't focus on the real threat to their business. The Tesco boss, Sir Terry Leahy, is famous for saying that prior to its development as Europe's biggest retailer, the company was obsessed with defeating its competitors, such as Sainsbury's. Once the Tesco team realised the real competition was what customers were saying about the company, it transformed their fortunes. Now, new research conducted at Cornell University, New York, adds another interesting twist to the whole area of competitiveness and it may well be that businesses are handling competition incorrectly in many instances.

The study was looking at the competitiveness between student groups. And the results surprised the researchers. They originally thought that the students would work hard to defeat the serious competition. In fact, they worked harder at trying to out-do the less serious threat to them. What happened was that students invested more effort in competing against low-threat groups, rather than higher status competition.

Imagine, for a moment, that you are a software developer. Your greatest competitive threat is probably Microsoft which can marshall resources against you and defeat you easily. So, this new study suggests that what you do is concentrate your efforts on defeating a competitor who is not quite as good as you at writing software code. Here's why: if you go head-to-head against the higher status competitor your risk of gain is very, very small indeed. However, if you compete against the lower status company, the risk of loss is considerable. In other words, you realise that the chances of winning against the "big boys" is small, so you don't bother trying. But the risk of losing face, confidence and so on to the small fry is huge - you can't let a company worse than you defeat you...! We are more motivated to avoid loss than we are to gain things. Hence defeating a lower status competitor becomes a greater motivation to businesses than the comparatively small gain of winning against a better company.

Yet, if you think about this logically for a moment, investing your efforts in competing against lower status firms, who are not as good as you, is crazy. You are already better than them, probably have more market share and so on. It's another example of how we focus on the wrong competition.

If you think about Tesco again, in reality it was focusing on low status competition - other supermarkets. It's real competitor - negative word of mouth - was much higher status and huge in its impact. Yet, focusing on the real competition - no matter the enormity of the task - transformed Tesco from an also-ran to a major international retailing force.

It seems that we need to go against our instincts. Firstly, work out what the real competition to your business is. If you run a web company, or do business on the internet, your real competitor might not be an online business. Once you have found the real competition, consider which one is the higher status than you. That's really the one to go for - you are already beating the lower status company. Don't put all your efforts on defeating the wrong competition. It might make you feel good, but your bank balance might improve if you focus your activity elsewhere.

The seemingly shady characters who inhabit the Israeli Secret Service lay accused of stealing the identities of six British citizens as part of a plot to murder a Palestinian militant. If true, that's not very nice behaviour is it? Tiger Woods is about to break his silence over his serial infidelity; whatever you think about his golfing prowess, he has hardly been a model husband has he? Meanwhile an 11-year-old boy has just ranked up his 50th criminal offence. Would you like him as a neighbour?

Wherever you look there are examples of negative and nasty behaviour. It might make you think that the human race is going down the pan. We're all doomed. Headlines are full of murder, thuggery and cheating, not to mention the overt selfishness of those mean and measly bankers. It's a harsh, cruel world out there isn't it?

Well, actually, no it is not. People are naturally more likely to be positive, supportive and helpful of other people. The media coverage we get is there because it is so rare to see this kind of behaviour. Most 11-year-olds aren't criminals; most golfers are faithful to their wives and most bankers are nice, decent people - many making significant donations to charity.

If you want proof that people are actually nice to each other, that they like helping one another and that they are decent, honest and truthful, go to Twitter. Just spend 10 minutes - you don't need any more - observing the "Twitter stream" and see what passes by. What you will witness is a large number of people helping each other. Questions will get answered. information will be shared, useful links will be posted and all manner of helpful, supportive and positive suggestions will appear before your eyes.

Twitter is an exhibition of altruistic behaviour and demonstrates that there are people "out there" willing to help you and your business. Indeed, only this week Twitter provided me with some real, practical help. I was asked by two media students to take part in their final year project. They needed to interview me on video in a quiet, office setting. The trouble was, I was travelling on the day of the interview and needed an office for around an hour, away from my base. I could, of course, have booked an hour or two with an office rental company. But that would have been £50 or more; I was already giving up my time to help these students (altruism) but should I also fork out my hard-earned cash for them?

So I posed a question on Twitter. I merely asked if anyone had a spare office they could lend me for an hour or two. Within moments I had a couple of helpful suggestions and then a few minutes later a direct offer from Dean Faulkner of Isogon Marketing, the telemarketing specialists. He offered me use of his meeting room without requesting anything in return from me. That is true altruism - thank you to him.

It also points out another important fact for many online business owners. Many struggle to get things to work - even understanding Twitter itself. They sit there, frustrated, annoyed - even angry, because something they are trying to do with their website, their shopping cart or their social network profile just will not work as they want. Late nights, loads of coffee - and hours wasted. Yet, if they only asked, there are good, kind and generous people "out there" who would be only too willing to help - simply because they want to, with nothing desired in return.

The fact is, your business could be improved if you asked for help. Similarly, your business could also be improved if you provide help. Indeed, altruistic behaviour makes us feel good about ourselves. When we help other people our "happy hormones" rise in our body. And when they are abundant it improves our overall health. That's one of the reasons why altruism is present in human beings - it makes for a healthier life.

So, don't get downhearted by all those negative headlines; instead ask for help on Twitter and you will get it. Provide help on Twitter and you will feel good about life as well. It just makes you think - perhaps the Israeli Secret Service didn't need to "steal" any identities at all - there would have been people willing to help them, if only they had asked.

Customers can either help you or hinder you. They can, for instance, let other people know about how wonderful you are, merely because they want to do that. On the other hand they can write negative reviews or blog posts saying how appalling your customer service has become. Clearly you want more people to be positive and helpful towards your business - but how? And why would they help your business for no personal gain?

Such behaviour - altruism - is commonplace. We like helping each other. But we only like helping people if we feel some kind of attachment or bond to them, or if we can understand their position. You recommend businesses to your friends and colleagues ever day; but they are businesses you like, admire, trust and so on. Have you ever altruistically helped someone find the right product using a company you detest? Every business depends on altruistic behaviour in the form of word of mouth. Or companies need altruistic people to help them with surveys, market research and so on. Goodwill is what keeps your business ticking over.

Generating that goodwill and the associated altruitsic behaviour does not happen easily, of course. You have to work at it. But new research conducted on both sides of the Atlantic shows that there is a "trick" you can employ to generate more altruistic behaviour. The study found that "mood elevation" triggered much more altruistic behaviour than when people were either neutral or somewhat depressed. "Mood elevation" means making people feel happy and positive.

In other words, it is rather simple. Make your customers happy and they will do more for you, out of the goodness of their heart. That might translate into increased uptake of upsells, more word of mouth, extra participation in market research. But whatever altruistic action you want customers to take, they are more likely to do what you want if you lighten their mood first. Depending on your type of business there could be several ways of doing this - humour, showing your charity work, doing something for them without prompting. In other words, if you think about the ways you can increase the mood of your customers - making them happy at specific connections with your business - then they are much more likely to help you do what you want (such as buy two instead of one, or complete an online survey).

Think about the companies you seem always prepared to help. It's a fair chance they make you feel happy. But think about the companies you just couldn't be bothered to assist; probably they just don't affect your mood at all - or even they may make you rather depressed. It's an old saying, but "keep your customers happy" seems to have some psychological backing now.

Friends are important; they support you, listen to you, laugh at your jokes and have fun with you. Online they share information with you, point you in the right direction to useful material and support you with their feedback. There is little doubt that both online and offline friends are important. Indeed, for many years doctors have known that those of us with plenty of good friends tend to be the healthiest; friendship boosts our positive biochemistry helping our immune systems and protecting us from disease.

But your friends do more than this; they influence your thinking. Everyone you meet has some kind of influence upon you, but the people you have the most connection with are the ones who have the greatest power over you. New research on schoolchildren confirms that the attitude of those around us influences our feelings and our behaviour. The study from the University of Chicago showed that female teachers who believe that girls are no good at maths end up with girls in their class who - you guessed it - are not much cop at adding up. In other words they are passing on their anxiety to the children they teach, almost by a process of osmosis.

This research confirms many previous studies which show that our thoughts and feelings are often not of our own making. They arise as a result of the thoughts and feelings of the social groups which we inhabit. The whole notion of "group thinking" is an interesting one - how, for instance, do groups of people all think the same thing at the same time? They do. We seem capable of transmitting thoughts between us using all sorts of behaviours.

Online you can see this happening in places like Facebook groups. A thought, attitude or feeling takes hold and everyone in the group tends to think the same thing. It happens online with people who collectively support WordPress, for instance, all claiming that Blogger is garbage in comparison - and no amount of arguing can shift them. That's because unless the entire group changes its attitude, individuals are less likely to alter their opinion.

It all means that you are influenced heavily by the groups you get involved with online. Even in subtle ways they are affecting your thoughts, feelings, attitudes and online behaviour. This new research on schoolgirls shows us that we are open to influence not only in our thoughts but in the results of the way our thinking affects our behaviour. In other words, if you inhabit a group that suggests using a social network is tough, you will find it practically difficult. If we measured your knowledge and ability with social networks - and you have friends who tell you that social networking is difficult - then your results would be lower than people whose friends love social networking and say it is brilliant. In other words, your actual abilities in online technology are probably affected by the people who surround you.

It's the same with making money. The friends of millionaires tend to be millionaires. The friends of would-be millionaires are also millionaires. If you are poor and all your friends are poor - guess what? Yes, you remain poor. If you inhabit online networks that tell you blogging is a waste of time - guess what? You will find every excuse in the world not to do any blogging.

Your online friends influence you in many ways. Make sure you choose the right ones.

The modern business person is often isolated, working in front of their computer for hours on end. Even if they work in an office, it's often in a "cubicle" where the communication to the person next to them is via email, text message or Twitter. And small business owners are spending more time sitting at their computer because they need to maintain their website, answer emails, check in to social networking sites and research their marketplace. We've all gone computer mad.

And therein lies a problem. It is changing our brains. Two new research studies on people with dementia clearly show that exercise and physical activity help prevent "cognitive impairment". In other words, lack of physical activity stops your brain working effectively. Sitting for hours on end with little activity makes you less able to think your way through business problems and work out what to do in a particular situation.

Do you have trouble thinking of ideas for your blog? Could be you'd be more creative if you got regular physical activity. Stuck on which web site hosting company to really opt for? Again, more exercise could be the answer. And are you wondering, yet again, how Twitter can help your business? Yes, you've guessed it, your brain could work that out if you had more physical activity in your life.

There's another issue associated with long-term computer use as well - headaches. The muscular tension associated with focusing your eyes on a fairly fixed distance for hours on end produces head pain. Breaks away from your computer will solve that. Computers also produce positive ions in the atmosphere which reduce our cognitive performance as well, meaning when we sit at our computers running our web empires, we are doubly affecting our brains; lack of exercise and being surrounded by positive ions has a real impact on our mood and our ability to think. Is it any wonder so many people get annoyed and frustrated and confused by much of the internet? It's not the internet that's the problem, it's their stifled brains.

Here are some solutions you can use.

• Get an air ioniser. Negative ion generators will improve the air quality on a room with computers (as long as the door and windows are shut - otherwise you will be trying to ionise the world...!).
• Take regular breaks. If you need a reminder to move away from your computer, get a reminder alarm that will beep you every 45 minutes to go away...!
• Plan more physical activity. Simple thinks like getting off the tube a stop early and walking the rest of the way, or cycling to the local shop instead of using the car, or using stairs instead of the lift, will all help.
• Move your phone to another room. When it rings, you have to get up from your computer and you have to move; a double whammy.

Whatever you do, if you do something that breaks you free from your computer for even half an hour a day you will find your brain improves. Your thinking and your mood will alter. And that means your attitude to your online business and to blogging or social networking will also alter. You will find them much easier and much more interesting.

Clearly, the biggest improvement you can make to your online world is to become more active in the offline one you are currently sitting in. Get up..! Go Away...!