Today Dev Dhaliwal (Director of our office here in Malaysia) and I were in “The Mall” in Kuala Lumpur – one of the first big shopping malls in the city (opened in 1986).  We were near the top where big curving metal beams meet the roof, and Dev said, “I remember how when this opened we all thought this structure was so amazing…”

Meanwhile, yesterday (!) I was walking along the path below the Jumeirah Beach Hotel in Dubai with Jayne Morrison, the Director of our Middle East office.  The skyline there is dominated by “the Burj” (Jumeirah’s Burj Al Arab hotel, which opened in 1999).  We got talking about this remarkable structure, and how it’s almost breathtaking standing near it.  Jayne wondered how long it would be before these properties would seem passé, and said something to the effect of, “I’ve loved going into this hotel since I first came to Dubai.”

In the past I’ve used the phrase “the test of time” thinking of the sweep of history – of those few works that remain relevant and significant over hundreds of years.  But tonight it seems that time is speeding up, and I’m wondering about the “test of decades” or even, “the test of years.”

I look back to my years as a contractor (1980s) or as a teacher (1990s) and wonder:  Does that work still measure up?  (some yes!)  Likewise, we started Six Seconds in 1997 — what from those first years still stands relevant?  I remember our first “EQ Trainer Certification” with some chagrin compared to the solid program it’s become — but there are still elements from the very first one.  Certainly the core model and learning design have stuck… and once in a while I hear from people who, at the turn of the Millennium, said “this experience changed my life,” and who still identify it as a turning point.  In general I’m satisfied with the “decade test,” but I also see places where I now regret those cut corners.

But perhaps the real opportunity in this question is to consider it in advance… What would happen if we all practiced asking ourselves:  “Will this decision stand the test of time?”

 A couple of the winners of the RSA Design Direction caught my eye, although all the winners and entrant’s work seems amazing.Alex Ostrowski approached The Frenchay Brain Injury Rehabilitation Centre in Bristol to see how he might use design to help in some way. It emerged that all patients suffer from post-traumatic amnesia and experience confusion in their sense of time, place and person. The term for this lost understanding is disorientation, something the unit is responsible for regaining with patients. Alex worked closely with staff to establish an appropriate colour system to bring holistic navigation to the unit, which we could apply to patients’ timetables, orientation boards, and the building itself and the project resulted in a book entitled ‘I am here’. Jim Rokos designed ‘Mind-plan’, a tool that captured the user-centred nature of the brief, to help patients recovering from mental illness and who find it hard to plan a balanced life and fulfil their daily needs. A healthy balanced life allows recovery to continue and reduces the possibility of a relapse. Mind-plan is based on Maslow’s psychological theory, Hierarchy of Needs, which many people perceive as the definitive set of five human needs.