As CTO of Arke, but most importantly, as a passionate software engineer, I occasionally reflect on what drives true innovation in software development. While many companies chase market share or aim to become "the next big thing," —often ignoring the nature of the thing— I've come to believe that the most transformative innovation emerges from a more nuanced relationship with our goals and aspirations.

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The French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan spoke of desire as fundamentally oriented around an impossible object—not in the sense of being difficult to achieve, but in being structurally unattainable. This concept has profoundly influenced my approach to innovation as we build our next-generation ERP platform. The creative drive and desire (to achieve, to grow, to complete and compete) are inevitably intertwined or, at least, share common roots.

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The conventional wisdom in tech suggests setting SMART goals: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. While this framework serves its purpose for project management and delivery milestones, it fails to capture the deeper, heart wrenching creative tension that drives genuine innovation. At Arke, we've embraced a dual approach: concrete, achievable objectives for our sprints and releases, coupled with an overarching vision that deliberately exceeds what we know to be possible.

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I've witnessed firsthand the cost of missing this crucial element. In previous roles, I've seen teams trapped in the machinery of pure execution—companies where every goal was achievable (or unknowingly impossible, which ironically feels the same), every metric was reasonable (or simply ignored), and every quarter was predictable (predictably good or predictably bad). The result? Teams that weren't just unmotivated; they were existentially fatigued. Without that higher creative tension, work became a mere checklist of deliverables. I watched talented engineers, including myself, resign en masse, not because the work was too hard, but because it wasn't hard enough in the right way. It lacked that vital spark that transforms routine development into creative exploration.

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Back to Arke, we're not trying to become the next SAP—that summit has already been climbed. Instead, we orbit around a more elusive ideal: an ERP system that achieves perfect harmony between power and simplicity, between standardization and flexibility, between automation and human judgment. This isn't just about shooting for the stars; it's about maintaining a creative tension that transforms our team daily.

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This tension manifests in fascinating ways. When our developers tackle a new feature, they're not just implementing requirements—they're engaging with this larger impossible ideal. Each solution becomes a creative act, an attempt to narrow the gap between current limitations and our ultimate vision. The very impossibility of achieving perfection keeps us innovative, preventing us from settling for "good enough."

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Our sprint goals are concrete and achievable: improve performance by X%, reduce cognitive load in specific workflows, reduce onboarding time. But these tactical objectives exist within the gravitational pull of our larger vision. Like Lacan's concept of desire, this vision isn't something we expect to fully realize—its power lies precisely in its unattainability.

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This approach has profound implications for team motivation and creativity. When you're chasing a possible goal—even an ambitious one—reaching it can lead to a kind of creative death. But when you're in dialogue with an impossible ideal, each achievement becomes part of an ongoing transformation. Our teams aren't demoralized by the impossibility; they internalized it and are paradoxically energized by it. Each incremental improvement is celebrated, while the tension that drives innovation remains generative.

And most importantly, any idea can be discussed, no matter how “out there”, because we have no reason to be scared by them.

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The results speak for themselves. Our ERP solution has evolved in ways we couldn't have predicted, incorporating innovations that emerged from this creative tension. We've designed features that transcend the traditional boundaries of ERP systems, not because we set out to disrupt the market, but because we remained in dialogue with our impossible ideal and with customers.

The relationship with customers evolves as well - while their ideas may sometimes seem bizarre or hyper-specific, our comfort with embracing the impossible allows us to truly listen and distill valuable insights we might otherwise miss.

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This is what true innovation looks like in software development—not a linear path toward a predetermined goal, but a continuous orbit around an unattainable vision that transforms both the product and the team creating it. It's about maintaining that delicate balance between achievable milestones and impossible dreams, between the practical and the ideal.

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As we continue building Arke's ERP platform, we embrace this creative tension. Our success isn't measured by whether we achieve our ultimate vision—that's not the point. Success is in how this vision shapes our journey, drives our innovation, and continuously transforms our understanding of what's possible in enterprise software.

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