KKIMD 2026
An international mayors’ summit, from brief to public site in 29 days.

Who they are

A city council hosting the world’s mayors

Kota Kinabalu City Hall (Dewan Bandaraya Kota Kinabalu) is the city council for Sabah’s capital. From 10 to 14 October 2026 it hosted the Kota Kinabalu International Mayors’ Dialogue, an invitation-only gathering of mayors and city leaders on Future Coastal Cities: Advancing Blue Economy, Digital Governance and Urban Resilience. The main dialogue ran on 12–13 October at the Sabah International Convention Centre.

What was broken

An event with a date, and no public address

The event had a programme, a theme and a date, but no website for delegates, embassies and press. City Hall wanted a programme, a “Who’s Coming” page, venues, and a homepage carrying the Mayor’s welcome and partner recognition.

The hard part was not design. The delegate list changes as clearances come through, the programme went through four versions, and a city council’s website has to be right about who is attending before it says so.

What we did

Discipline more than design

1. 1

   Wrote the specification before the price

   A 16-page specification and a separate quotation went to City Hall on 3 August; City Hall confirmed the next day.

2. 2

   Put a fence around the open-ended job

   Delegate updates twice a week until the list closes on 10 October, so both sides know what “kept current” means.

3. 3

   Published only what City Hall had put in writing

   Every name on Who’s Coming comes from the Secretariat’s own sheet. Organisations only approached for cooperation were never shown as partners.

4. 4

   Launched on the client’s word

   Built on a private preview; the full site went public on Saturday 29 August 2026 when City Hall gave the go-ahead.

5. 5

   Kept pace after launch

   Programme version 4.0 went live the day it arrived, a side talk was added on request, and a batch of new delegates went live within a day of the Secretariat’s update.

6. 6

   Designed against the costly mistake

   The expression-of-interest form says clearly that it is not a registration, so nobody books a flight on the strength of a thank-you page.

What changed

Live on time, and found by the people it is for

• Four weeks from brief to public site: first brief 31 July, specification 3 August, domain live 7 August, public launch 29 August 2026.
• In its first four weeks live (29 August – 26 September 2026) the site took 111 clicks from Google across 601 appearances in 26 countries.
• People searching “kkimd” found it at the top of the results, and 78% of them clicked. Clicks came from South Korea, Indonesia, the Maldives and the United States — delegates’ home countries.
• The Who’s Coming list and the partner wall have grown steadily since launch, updated twice a week.
• From launch to the third day of the Dialogue (29 August – 12 October 2026) the site took 450 clicks from Google across 1,811 appearances, in 42 countries.
• Search peaked with the event: 129 clicks in its first three days (10–12 October), including 74 on Sunday 11 October, the day of the Mayor’s Welcome Reception — more than in the site’s whole first four weeks.

Project record July–October 2026; Google Search Console for kkimd.com.my, pulled 27 Sep 2026 (first four weeks) and 15 Oct 2026 (29 Aug – 12 Oct). The last two days of the Dialogue are left out because Google’s figures for them were not final when pulled.