SOA is more fun in Second Life

Occassionally I feel the need to justify my SL adventures by doing "work" -- exploring aspects that may play into higher ed technology and academic programming.  Recently I visited IBM's SOA Adventure island.  The island, much like my impression of SOA, looks pretty cool and offers fun stuff, but gets convoluted the more time you spend with it.  In terms of providing information about SOA I was not particularly impressed.  There is an attempt to make a connection between playing steel drums on the beach and SOA ("because SOA composes your IT like musical notes") but I was at a loss for how the big volcano and under-world chambers of heaven and hell fit in.

Being chased by SOA service goblins?


Service reusability?


When I finally emerged from the labryinth of toxic waste and dayglo mushrooms I got an alert that I was in the "Succesful Implementations room".  A message said "Congratulations! You have succesfully gone through the maze!":


For the amount of time it took to get through the maze I really thought I'd land somewhere more magnificent.  And this is my big hang-up about SOA -- lots of time and effort and not much to show for it.