Every Monday night at 8p ET it begins.  People get comfortable in front of their computers and they begin sending out messages apologizing for what will take place over the next 3 hours for those who aren’t joining.  Suddenly the Twitter stream starts filling up with messages being tagged #journchat at an alarming rate.  Have you experienced this yet?  Have you been wondering what it was?

#journchat was started by my friend and PR superstar, Sarah Evans.  As Sarah describes, she started #journchat because

…I believe there is a need in this evolving world of media and public relations for some major dialogue between those who can make it happen.  The mission of #journchat is to keep an ongoing, open dialogue between journalists, bloggers, and public relations professionals…

It turns out that Sarah was right about her belief that there was a need for dialogue between PR and journalists.  As of this week’s discussion, #journchat has become the #1 trending topic on Twitter for 10 weeks in a row during the discussion.  What is really amazing is the speed at which it becomes the top trending topic.  Within minutes of starting each week, #journchat pops up in the trending topics on Twitter Search.  Not long after that it takes the top rank.  There are literally a couple thousand tweets sent during the #journchat discussion.

If you haven’t popped over to #journchat yet, it happens every Monday from 8p to 11p ET on Twitter.  To join and track the conversation, you can use Twitter Search to monitor what’s going on.

I think this concept could be replicated in many other communities.  What I like so much about it is that it uses the existing tools to bring together this particular community regularly each week.  The conversation then continues throughout the week on Twitter as well as on the #journchat Facebook fan page.

Have you tried #journchat yet?  What did you think?