Privatizing a Blog: What's Up with that?

Orientation has begun for the RWJ Health Policy Fellowship, and I finally understand a bit of what I am supposed to be doing here. It seems my job is to provide Congress with cogent and pristine policy analysis on issues related to health policy. My position at the IOM gives me great credibility; in Washington, that allows us unprecedented access to information and people. Indiscriminant DISTRIBUTION of that information, however, is the kiss of death in this town. Hence the closing of the blog, and it's transformation into my private diary. I may open this to a few people (e.g. my wife and sons), but not a lot more. Makes sense.

Some salient quotes from yesterday:

What makes a great experience? An office that makes it feel like you are part of the team, you have a front seat, that you have a portfolio, and that you present stuff to a legislative team that you love and admire. You spend long and hard hours, working from 6 AM to 11 PM, and you feel like you are making policy. You become part of a process that makes it happen. The Rose Garden ceremony is the icing on the cake.

What is success? Success is making not one enemy and learning to handle information in a very strategic way. This is a marathon, not a sprint. Don’t do anything that will interfere with your ability to go forth into the future. You are playing for the long game.

That seems a tall order to me. Our charge is to be indispensable, yet invisible. I see many ways in which this can go wrong. We'll see how it goes.

More later.