My colleague Bill Poole gave a presentation last night on SOA at the Perth .NET Community of Practice. To those who didn't make it you missed a highly informative tour of the fundamentals of SOA. My only real criticism is that a discussion of service boundaries would have eliminated some of the audience questions (No, I'm not just suggesting that because it was my comment when I reviewed the powerpoint slides before the presentation).

These are the kind of presentations that make user groups worthwhile. Attendees get to learn about new topics or see how other people conceive and apply them. Presenters get to have a trial-by-fire for their ideas. If you can present to a user group and come through unscathed then your ideas may just have some merit. There's also the networking opportunities and the chance to win a Resharper license (I've done this twice now).