How many spatial officers does it take to change an organisation's attitude to open source geospatial information systems? Can you turn a programmer into a spatial officer? Can you turn a spatial officer into a programmer? What is a geospatial specialist? Can you teach an old lawyer new tricks? Can open source and proprietary software play nice together? Can Windows Server run anything not Microsoft related? What is cultural mapping? What advantages can you leverage as a not for profit?
In this presentation I will try and answer these questions, through the story of what I learnt during my time working as a Geospatial Specialist at Yamatji Marlpa Aboriginal Corporation, a Native Title Representative Body in Western Australia. I will try to highlight some of the challenges, successes, and failures I found working in this space, and try to provide some suggestions for others.