Brian Butler is Dean and Professor at the University of Alabama's College of Communication and Information Sciences.Dr. Butler received his Ph.D. in Information Systems from Carnegie Mellon University. His recent scholarly work has been published in Archival Science, Journal of the Association of Information Science and Technology (JASIST), Information Systems Research, MIS Quarterly, Communications of the ACM, and Organization Science. His research areas include the development and modeling of online communities and social media systems, the interplay of power and information technology in organizations, and techniques for deploying complex information systems to support reliable organizational and individual performance.Narrative, Strategy, and Emerging Technology in Information InstitutionsSocial computing, social media, and online communitiesDisaster recoveryPower, politics and information technology managementOnline communities: dynamics and developmentDeveloping and maintaining robust, reliable information systemsInformation technology impacts on alternate supply chain structures (e.g. local food systems)