Otis White on tapping into citizens’ expertise.

By Matt Lehrman

Social Prosperity Partners

In the first nine episodes of the “Community Catalysts” podcast, I’ve interviewed 3 mayors, a city council member, 3 nonprofit executives, a police chief, and a police detective turned social media strategist. This week, I want to introduce a voice you’ll hear more from in future episodes.

In his 22-year career as principal of Civic Strategies, an Atlanta-based consulting firm, Otis White became one of the country’s top strategic planning experts. When I asked him to describe the job for an 8-year-old, he said, “I tried to make cities better by trying to make some of the institutions in cities work a little better.”

For four years, Otis hosted his own podcast, also called “Civic Strategies,” produced in cooperation with the Georgia Municipal Association. Those 39 interviews are no longer available anywhere, but Otis has generously gifted his audio archive to “Community Catalysts,” so I will be sharing some highlights from that series on a monthly basis, along with more of my interview with Otis.

This week’s takeaway from an elder statesperson in civic planning facilitation?

“We’re all experts, but we don’t recognize each other’s expertise,” he said. “The citizens are experts in what kind of community they want. And they’re also experts, by the way, in fairness. But the experts we think of as experts — planners, city department leaders — are experts in something else. They’re experts not in the what but the how.”

Listen now on Apple, Spotify and other podcast platforms.