California WildWoman

Waialua Soda Works had been closed many decades when newlyweds Jason and Karen Campbell – a metal sculptor and a marketer — adopted the name for their

Hipahipa! (Click on the photo to read the fine print near the neck of the bottle.)

new business after heading across the Pacific from Southern California.

Hawaii has been a big soda-bottling state. Waialua began bottling pineapple soda in 2004 as a small-batch company. The Campbells mixed the ingredients, let them ferment in an ordinary refrigerator, sterilized the bottles and siphoned the soda into them. They could fill only 500 bottles a week; but soon they bought new equipment that let them do 700 bottles an hour.

The ingredients, the Campbells say, are all Hawaiian, except the bottles. Those come from Oregon because Hawaii doesn’t have a glassworks. The finished soda comes right back to Oregon and the other West Coast states, plus Virginia, Maryland and, naturally, Hawaii for retail. It can also be ordered from online soda stores.

What’s in it: Carbonated water, blend of Hawaiian and specifically Maui cane sugars, natural flavor, citric acid, beta carotene (color).

Appearance: Clear, rich gold like pineapple juice.

Aroma: Sweet, soft ripe pineapple scent

Flavor: Mild, feels light, tastes like a ripe pineapple.

Finish: Light, fast

Pairings: Don’t. Just kick off your slippers and sip it on the porch as the sun sets.

Notes: This soda’s delicacy and lack of pretension will transport you to the islands and leave you feeling happy.

Freelance writers and editors typically believe they have nothing to gain from business leadership courses. They view themselves as creatives, not as business people.

They couldn’t be more wrong. Besides writing and editing, productive freelancers also do marketing, customer service, billing and collections, and basic people management.

Leadership courses can make even a one-person business more effective in all of these areas. Here’s how:

They teach you about yourself. Rarely do leadership courses fail to do a self-examination of habits, attitudes, values, expectations and goals. The idea is that success is predicated on self-knowledge – you can’t reach for the stars if you don’t realize that you’ve tied up your own hands., and you can’t influence others if you can’t manage yourself.

They teach you how all the things in the self-analysis affect your relationships with other people, such as editors, photographers and designers.

They provide strategies for oiling the gears of business relationships, whether it’s nailing down the scope of an assignment with an editor or collecting an overdue check from an accounts payable department.

Leadership is about influence – not bossiness, but about influencing other people to deliver what you want or need. Leadership courses teach goal-setting and how to keep your eye on the goal rather than going ballistic More