Sorry to ask the obvious question, but who cares? IS Programs (even the top ones) aren't the most rigorous things in the world. Anyone who is in a CIO type position should probably have real world experience, professional degrees be damned. Why aren't we talking about that instead?
Agreed. The fact is he did a pretty good job with the DC.gov websites according to just about everyone involved. They're the most data rich and accessible complex government site I've ever seen. e.g. http://data.octo.dc.gov/ Visual design aside, DC may well have the best website of any city or state in the country.
"They're the most data rich and accessible"
Visual design aside, there's a distinct possibility that DC.gov is one of the most data rich government sites out there. The only problem is, well, finding the information. The findability level of this information is about like the hand-curated Yahoo! Directory from 1999.
And then there's accessibility. Maybe that means something different to you than me, but let's delve into it.
First of all, the page uses tables. That makes it a nightmare for any screen-reading software to utilize.
Turning off styles and javascript renders the main navigation useless.
The markup of the page is entirely table cells and font tags, granting no semantic meaning to the content whatsoever. This makes deep-searching the site even more problematic, as search engines have no context for the textual information contained within the page. E.g.; Google looks at h1 elements as having more important content than, say, a p element. It also limits the usefulness of screenreaders, as they read cell by cell, row by row. (thus, if two related pieces of content are in two cells, one on top of each other, they won't be read together - it will read the first one, then finish up the row before continuing on with the second cell).
Then there's deep-link URLs like, http://www.rrc.dc.gov/rrc/cwp/view,a,1182,q,447149,rrcNav_GI.... What does that even mean? Is it some attempt at securing the "Play in DC" page (which, to be honest, is fairly useless: all it does is list links to the history, entertainment, libraries, etc subpages.. the only reason it's needed is because the entire site design is one big Charlie Foxtrot).
Anyone who thinks this website is a "pretty good job" and has anything to do with: design, usability, accessibility, and SEO - well, you should probably turn in your card. Sorry to say. And if a C-level executive doesn't understand how -- especially with government sites -- accessibility for visually impaired individuals is extremely important, well. He either needs to be educated or, if ineffective, fired. It's nearly criminal (especially for a government website).
In finality:
Being a data rich site means nothing if accessing that data is akin to crawling through a swimming pool filled with broken glass and lemon juice. And then not even getting the information you were looking for when you first dove into the miasma of pain.