Recently I had a big announcement to share with family, friends and colleagues.

My son Truman Fraser Devaney was born June 1^st.

Planning how to announce this news to everyone became a real challenge of thinking who likes to use what form of communication. My partner and I had to go down the list of names and figure out if the person would get a phone call to their mobile or landline, a text message, a blog post, an email, Skype, iChat, G-Chat, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and in some cases the mail and word of mouth.

My Dad’s favourite medium these days is text.

My Mom needed a call to her mobile with the news, then she wanted to connect later via her iPad using the video feature of iChat.

All of our relatives in Scotland needed to hear from us via landlines, mobile and email.

Most of our friends, family and colleagues were happy to get an email and photo.

Grandma in America, who is 98, doesn’t hear the phone, and has no computer. She needed a friend to inform her, who we emailed, along with a picture. The friend printed out the photo and visited her in her nursing home to tell her the news.

Then there was the whole wide world who we wanted to know the news and we used Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn for the announcement. This helped connect with far away friends and family who use these mediums more than email.

All the scramble to get the word out got me thinking about how much our methods of communications have changed in the last couple of decades. It used to be that phone calls were enough, and then a birth announcement could be shared by mail. You might even take out an ad in a local newspaper, which some people still do, or have your boss make an announcement at work. You may also live closer to family and friends and they could tell each other and then stop by for a visit.

Do you find your personal and professional communications difficult and confusing in this day and age? We are all thinking all the time about how to reach the people we care about, and Facebook isn’t the only way to do so. Social media helps with some of our communications, but plenty of people of varying ages, refuse to use the medium.

The hard part is that if you don’t get in touch with certain people, through the medium they use most, they get mad and insulted at you. So you better think it through and if your Dad wants a text message, then send it.

How are you managing your communications? Have you ever counted how many channels you are using to communicate? I’ve got about a dozen channels I’m using, sometimes on a daily basis.

Please share your stories with me, leave a comment.