James Hoffmann is best described as an obsessive coffee professional: he's a world champion barista, co-founder of Square Mile Coffee a roasting outfit in London, UK, and like seemingly every entrepreneur these days he's also a prodigious YouTube creator.

On his channel, Hoffmann covers all minutiae of the coffee world from niche (literally) espresso grinders to the "wonderfully absurd" Bripe — a coffee brewing pipe. So when he dropped his latest video about vegetable stock I was just a little hesitant to click. reservations aside, the video is well worth a watch if you have any interest in cooking. Hoffmann tests the hypothesis—derived from the coffee world—that a smaller grind or in this case juicing the vegetables allows for greater extraction, improving efficiency and flavor. Outside of making delicious veggie stock, Hoffman's final point is profound: look for "opportunities for cross-pollination thinking" between disciplines.

Cross-pollination, the process of being exposed to new ways of thinking by sharing knowledge, I think is sorely overlooked.  Partnerships, business or otherwise, often begin and end with people (often middle-managers) bodging together disparate processes, with little regard given to benefiting wider systems by building on (or even forging new) common principles and values. An energy drink company and a camera manufacturer would seem to have little in common until you pair up action-oriented Red Bull with recording that action GoPro who are nearing half a decade of an exclusive partnership. 

If a clever coffee obsessive can apply his bean-based thinking to a base for a delicious soup, what other opportunities are out there?