Vinnie Mirchandani is one the enterprise IT influencers not attending Oracle OpenWorld in the flesh this year. Instead, he’s plugging into event content and buzz through the new “Oracle OpenWorld 2008 Influencer Community.” Smart move by Oracle.

Oracle invited media and bloggers alike to join this event-specific influencer community. That means bloggers don’t need to request access from different marketing groups or provide different kinds of information. There’s just one place/process for joining, whether you are a journalist, blogger-journalist, blogger-analyst, blogger-consultant, blogger-pundit, etc.

This is not to say that Oracle marketing, sales and support departments no longer quibble over how to classify specific bloggers. Silos are a fact of life in most marketing departments. It’s just that in this instance, the silo mechanics are hidden neatly behind the curtain.

Big step in the right direction.