By Mayor Joseph A. Curtatone

(The opinions and views expressed in the commentaries of The Somerville News belong solely to the authors of those commentaries and do not reflect the views or opinions of The Somerville News, its staff or publishers.)

One of the challenges city government faces in the modern world is to evolve as quickly as its customers. Many of our residents use social media like Facebook and Twitter to connect with the rest of the world, both as part of their personal lives and as part of their jobs. Our businesses interface with other businesses in the online world as much as they do face-to-face.

If we truly wish to serve the people who live and work in Somerville, then we need to embrace technological innovation so that we are consistently in line with what you are doing online. We have to do that in order to stay relevant, just like we had to pave the roads once large numbers of people started buying cars.

Already in 2011 Somerville has made strides in its online customer service. Our 311 constituent services line now takes work orders via Facebook and Twitter, and we have now unrolled our new Traffic and Parking website. Both initiatives directly address 21st century customer service needs and expectations.

Our 311 center formally began taking work orders via social media in January and it proved an effective way of getting through to the city during the numerous snow emergencies we experienced during that month. Often when we declare a snow emergency we get a glut of calls which swamp our call center. However, if you send us a Facebook message, you do not have to wait on the other end of the line for us to answer during one of those high volume patches.

You have the luxury of taking care of other things and still getting a timely answer to your inquiry. We have also been using social media to get out the word about snow emergencies and school cancellations. Often the first place that information is presented is on our SomervilleCity, 311Somerville and SvilleSchools Twitter feeds. You literally can be the first to find out about important citywide bulletins by following those Twitter feeds.

Meanwhile, many of you have probably noticed our new Traffic and Parking site. The official URL is www.parksomerville.com/index.html, though you can also access it from the main City website at www.somervillema.gov. The T&P sub-site is the most heavily trafficked area of our overall website and was in glaring need of an upgrade. From the new site you can download the forms for our various parking permits, or look up our snow emergency regulations, or pay your citation online, or schedule a hearing request.

The T&P site even can direct you to MBTA bus tracking apps for your smart phone. It all fits into our mission to create a more user-friendly City government. We serve you and, increasingly, the most convenient way for you to do business with us is online.

In the coming months you’ll be seeing even more from the City of Somerville in terms of website upgrades, online services and information transparency. As always, we’re more than happy to get your feedback on what we have done and what we should do in the future. So feel free to call us at 311 or email us at 311updates@somervillema.gov or send a Facebook or Twitter message to 311Somerville.

If you have something you want to tell us, we’re trying to listen in every conceivable way.