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16 minute read
Summary
On this episode of Collaboration Cafe, the Collab Collective’s Craig Durr speaks with Chris Neto, Head of Emerging Markets at Midwich. Set in Barcelona during ISE, their conversation explores personal stories, industry perspective, and candid moments to highlight the people and experiences that continue to shape Pro AV.
Their discussion covers:
- Community as a Career Catalyst: How shared experiences, in-person gatherings, and online engagement strengthen the Pro AV ecosystem
- From Cables to Cloud: Chris Neto’s career journey and the transition from physical AV installations to IT-driven collaboration environments
- Emerging Markets in AV: What “emerging markets” means in the context of Pro AV, including expansion into broadcast and new industry verticals
- AV in the AM Origins: The story behind Chris’s long-running social media series and how it created an authentic, industry-wide dialogue
- Personal Brand and Authenticity: Why owning your voice, setting boundaries, and staying genuine matter more than ever in a digital-first professional landscape
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Transcript
Craig Durr: Hey, everybody. Guess what? We are back! How are you doing? This is Craig Durr, Chief Analyst and Founder of the Collab Collective, and we're back for another edition of the Collaboration Cafe. Where do I find myself? Once again, we are in beautiful Barcelona.
It's the time of year because we are here for ISE. If you remember, it’s one of the largest shows for system integrators and Pro AV. We're talking 85,000 people. We're talking over a thousand different visitors, nine halls of exhibits. Now, what's really cool about this is the people that bring together. And now, in this episode of the Collaboration Cafe, you know what we're gonna talk about? We're gonna talk about community. I want to introduce you to a friend of mine who I think is a pinnacle to what we see in the Pro AV and IT community, his name is Chris Neto.
Now, if you haven't known Chris Neto, you might have seen him from what he does on Twitter with his AV in the AM, or you might know him for what he's done before in other spaces, like on LinkedIn or other social media channels. But what Chris really is, is he's the heart and soul of this community. You don't know this, but he's been what he says, “Pulling cables for over 30 years,” and that makes him an expert on what's not going on and where this industry is going.
So I want you to come with me. We're going to have another cup of coffee with Chris Neto on this edition of the Collaboration Cafe. Come on. Somewhere around here, Chris and I are meeting up.
Chris Neto, hey buddy.
Chris Neto: What’s up man. How are you?
Craig Durr: Good to see you. So a cup of coffee?
Chris Neto: Let's do it.
Craig Durr: But what's the plan here? You said you had something interesting for me.
Chris Neto: Yeah, you showed up with the most uninteresting sneaker. So we're gonna take care of you.
Craig Durr: You can't talk about these. No, really. Here's the plan: I'll get you a cup of coffee. I told people I want to talk about community, and if anyone else can tell me about community, it's going to be you. My coffee shops are on this way.
Chris Neto: Let's do it. Sounds good.
Craig Durr: You had a great line with me. You said, “Look, I've been pulling cables for 30 years.”
Chris Neto: Well, I haven't done it in a while, but yeah, it's kind of like when I joined the industry in 98, bringing a college degree in broadcast communications didn't really mean much, right? It wasn't something that people were looking for. As a matter of fact, they were hiring technicians out of auto body, where they were not really the auto body shops, where they were installing car stereos,
Craig Durr: But, yeah, because they were looking at people that were getting down on their hands and knees, right?
Chris Neto: Yeah, since you didn't have a lot of options of where people were coming from. You kind of just had this glut of, “Where do I find the talent?” And having a degree and going up against guys that have been roadies… I had guys that were roadies with Guns and Roses, and you don't know what it's like. They all had tattoos, they all had scars, and that's what they respected. So it was a good lesson early on.
I mean, I didn't move automatically into the social media marketing conversation overnight, but what I learned is that the respect in AV came from getting your hands on stuff. So I spent a lot of years doing that, and when I say I pulled cable, it was putting a TV on a cart that eventually turned into, hanging a speaker and a projector on the wall. You're doing all that sort of stuff, so it was just a natural evolution. All of a sudden, I'm being a video conferencing technician to being an audio visual technician.
Craig Durr: Yeah, and we're at this interesting time, and you saw this whole arc of IT skill sets becoming important in an AV world.
Chris Neto: And it scared me. It scared me because we went to school for creativity, and you're a Broadcast Communications major, you have to have an eye for a shot, an angle for lighting… You want to bring all that stuff in, you know, things like bokeh comes in, where you want to fade out the back, but keep the front and focus. You say that to an IT guy, and they're just like, “What does that mean?”
Craig Durr: So, you started doing this in ‘88?
Chris Neto: ‘98… ‘88 I was playing ball *laughs* what had happened was, I took a step back, and I went to work for a pharmaceutical.
Craig Durr: Oh, you left the industry?
Chris Neto: Yeah, I was a consultant, so I had left, took a contract to work for pharmaceuticals, and then that's when I went to the end user side of the business for 13 years. On that side of the business is where I really got my chops together because I spent a lot of time getting more technical. I did all my certs and everything.
Craig Durr: I keep at the Run-D.M.C. song, “My Adidas.” Is that like you there? Is that where you gonna help me with?
Chris Neto: Well, first of all, we're gonna have to have a conversation about your footwear. I had to sit down a while back and ask about that. The whole thing with sneakers… Let me explain how this happened.
I was on a panel. I forgot where it was, but I wore a pair of yellow sneakers, and it just happened to be that I bought a pair of yellow running sneakers. They weren't fashionable, they weren't anything. But when I got off the stage and went out my thing, then a month or two later, I ran into somebody, and they're like, “I remember seeing you speak at whatever venue it was, and you had these crazy yellow trainers. It caught my eye.”
I didn't pay attention to what I was wearing and all that sort of stuff because I came from the background that I had to have scars to prove that I legitimately belong here because there's a lot of imposter syndrome. When I get on stage, I'm there with executives, CEOs, owners of companies, guys that own 15 patents. What am I? I'm a fat kid from Jersey who got lucky. You know, that's just the way it is.
Craig Durr: Yeah, you know, let’s do this. There's a coffee shop up here. Let's get some coffee. Let's talk about community. Let's talk about personal brand, and then maybe you can talk about getting me some shoes to help me out here.
Chris Neto: If there is one thing that we are going to do in Barcelona it’s leave those in the rubbish that's over here on the side of the road.
Craig Durr: Hashtag, sneaker head. So what are you going to do?
Chris Neto: I am going to go old school now. I need caffeine, espresso.
Craig Durr: For me, cappuccino. All right, settle in.
Chris Neto: Yes, you got to do at least three or four of these in the morning. Before I came here, I was over in Portugal, and that's my routine. So in the morning, I stopped in Portugal, and there's no big breakfast in Portugal. As Americans, we're used to our pancakes, and the English have their English Breakfast. Portugal is just a coffee and maybe a toast or a pastry… the famous custard cakes from Portugal, the pastéis de nata. But yeah, I typically have a coffee and a pastry, but coffee is an all day thing.
Craig Durr: But hey, remind me. So you’re Portuguese?
Chris Neto: Yes, Mom and Dad immigrated from Portugal in the 60s. Both of my grandpas came over in the 50s. They served in the Merchant Marine. So my grandfather, Jack, actually served during the Korean conflict, and his boat was actually shot down, but he survived that. He was a tough, tough guy.
Craig Durr: And then your mom still lives in Portugal, right?
Chris Neto: Mom lived more years in America than she did because she had gone over with my dad about the age of 19, 20, and then she retired in America and said, “You know what, I'm now that I'm retired, I'm going back.” We would go back every year. My Portuguese is good, my Spanish is good because I would spend my summers here.
I came from a working class family. Do not think that this was like some luxury thing from my parents to buy me a plane ticket to come with grandma and grandpa back to the old school country was cheaper than putting me in the day camp.
Craig Durr: It was cheaper than summer camp.
Chris Neto: It was cheaper than summer camp. They put me on a plane. I'd go with grandma and grandpa, and I spent my summers there. And you know, it was culture shock because there were more things done outside the house than in.
Craig Durr: It's community. Again, what a great segue for that whole idea. I love that because people in Europe, you might have a small apartment, small flat, something like that, right?
Chris Neto: You go to a cafe to even watch a game show. You would gather, and that's where you kind of did your thing. And then, as soon as the show was over, you'd see people pick up and leave. It was wild. It was something that I was used to here, never saw there.
Craig Durr: You know it's funny you talk about that, too. I grew up in New Orleans
Chris Neto: I was just there.
Craig Durr: That's right, you were just there. You guys had your national sales meeting. And that same idea of community was essential to what we did there. It sounds like your experience with your dad was similar to mine. There's a part of my life I'm not supposed to talk about. He used to have to sit in a small… he called it like a shed, and the gentleman would come in and buy numbers from him, and they used to bet on the water flow number from the Mississippi River as printed in the time speaking. That's how they ran random numbers, so his background was community based upon… *laughs*
Right now, your role, your title, is emerging markets?
Chris Neto: Correct–Head of Emerging Markets for Midwich US.
Craig Durr: What does that mean?
Chris Neto: Well, Midwich US is a big company. We are headquartered US-wise, in Chesterton, Indiana. Globally, we're headquartered out of the UK. Head of Emerging Markets is a title that I've been working with for about a year now, and a lot of people ask, what is that?”
Emerging markets are, typically, financial emerging markets. You know, that's Southeast Asia and South America. They say, “Chris, you're going global?” No, let me translate that to the AV speak. In AV speak, an emerging market is verticals, so we've been primarily a star in a UC-focused company. We do a really good job with the UC products. We stepped into broadcast a few years ago now, going on year two or three of our foray into the broadcast space. AV is a big show for us, and IBC is now becoming a show for us, really.
Craig Durr: What about NAMM?
Chris Neto: Not yet, but it will definitely be in the future. We do have people that will go to NAMM, that are looking at products, microphones, audio… Our audio guys will specifically go and look at that sort of stuff.
Dude, you ordered food. Look at you. You are immersing yourself into Spanish culture.
Craig Durr: If we're not eating and drinking every 15 minutes, we're doing something wrong.
So we started off, and a big part of what we've been talking about here walking is community. But a lot of these people probably know you best, not with what you've done with Midwich. They know you from what you do in the Twitter world, now X. So I love the story about how you started AV in the AM. Tell me that story.
Chris Neto: So AV in the AM started with me getting up in the morning eight years ago because it's year number eight. Yeah, it's been a while. My kids were younger, and I got up and I made breakfast on Sundays. I get to go into dad mode on Sundays the most. My kids were sleeping, my wife was sleeping, the dog wasn't even up yet. I filled a dog bowl, I got my cup of coffee, I put it in the Tassimo, I set it off, and it went, then I got a picture of it, and I put the picture up on Twitter.
I said, “Good morning,” and I started answering a question regarding Amazon Alexa. Amazon Alexa had nothing to do with the corporate AV, but somebody said something along the lines of, “Well, will we ever see it in our space?” I said, “You know what, we see iPhones, so why wouldn't we see it?” And that stirred up a hornet's nest of the IT-centric AV people that are in the AV Tweeps community, so I fed into that at eight o'clock in the morning. We had a discussion. Nothing happened that day. It was just an interesting conversation.
The following week, I had a cool cup of coffee. Maybe a Star Wars one, maybe a Wobbuffet one, because I collect weird cups. So I posted up and said, “Good morning, “ and immediately, within five minutes, the message came back, “What are we talking about this week?” And I was not prepared.
Craig Durr: Man, you know, it’s only 9:30. We got to start off right.
Chris Neto: What's wonderful about AV in the AM was that two weeks in a row of this conversation, I knew I found something, and what I've basically discovered in that Sunday morning at eight o'clock were people getting ready for church. Dads that were up doing the same thing I was, giving people a break and making pancakes. Others were not sleeping well and were up checking their emails anyway. You'd be surprised how much activity is on the internet.
And the funny thing is, I know you did a video with Tim Albright. I had a conversation with Tim. I said, “Tim, you do AVNation, and AVNation does AV Week, but on the weekends, you're quiet. I said, “Have you ever thought about AV Lite? And he's like, “What?” And I said, “Weekend programming, man. It's like the old radio days, where during the week you do news and sports. And on the weekends…”
Craig Durr: And it's a human interest story.
Chris Neto: Yes, you do these things, but Tim's like, “I don't know if anybody's out there.” And this was many years ago, in the early days where Tim was doing an audio podcast, and we sat around and talked, and I said, “Dude, you got to video because that's where the future of this is.” He agreed, and he played around. And, you know, it went from being a recorded Skype call with Tim on podcast to video.
I saw that progression with AVNation. I thought it was great because we had nothing like that at the time. For him, for me, it felt very pirate radio, and I love that. Pirate radio was always to be that something broadcast overseas, like off the coast, that nobody can censor because we had no sponsors. Moreso, it was all about being rebellious, and if you're not paying us, you can't stop us, right? And I would love going on the show because I can have an opinion.
Craig Durr: That's your superpower on this.
Chris Neto: Yeah, right. AV in the AM, to an extent, was that. There was nobody watching what was happening on Sundays on Twitter. So we just had open, honest conversations, everything that came from technology to things that we saw at a show, careers, we've done business stuff…
Craig Durr: And now you've evolved this to where it is typically a standard of five questions.
Chris Neto: That's it, five questions, no more, no less. But there is one exception, we will do a sixth question, and it's for a buddy of mine, Jason Jacoby. He absolutely would love it when I would throw in a bonus. Because he loved the bonus question so much, I named it the Jacoby rule. So every once in a while, the topics are so big or so grand that I need that sixth question, and I say, “Get it all in,” and I let people know that the Jacoby rule will be in play. And then that's the sixth question.
So a lot of old school AV in the AM audience over the time realized that a sixth question is happening and it's coming. So it's five questions every Sunday. And I've been a lot more lenient. I was methodical. I have to do it every Sunday like people depend on it like I'm a distributor first, Twitter guy, social media guy second. That's how I see my life as far as career. I take it seriously. I love the community. I think the community has rallied around me and a lot of the things that we've brought up, and I love that. The support's always been there. It's kind of quiet. We have longtime supporters.
Craig Durr: One of the cool things that's taking place only recently is that you've been able to integrate that into your nine to five job, in that they started to appreciate that value, right? And this is now a little bit of who you are within your own Midwich world as well, right?
Chris Neto: What has been refreshing with Midwich, as opposed to places that I've been before, is that Midwich really accepted me as who I am. They understood that it's Chris, and Chris has this audience, and instead of stifling it because I've had, believe it or not, conversations prior to Midwich where I had companies that were interested, and they're like, “We love what you do, but we'd have to quiet you. We'd want to control that.” And unfortunately, those conversations didn't get anywhere.
I have a track record of having a very good reputation with that kind of online presence. I have rules that I have in place for me personally, that have kept me in good standing. When I say that, I typically do not talk about politics. I will bring up socio economic connections because it impacts the business, but if it doesn't impact the business, I keep my social status for that purpose. Where I get off a little bit on the tangents and stuff like that is because I had to bring my personal side to the business, to Twitter. So that's where the confusion lies. People say, “Dude, you're so passionate about this. Why aren't you passionate about that?” I have my rules. And me being passionate about pineapple on pizza is fun, right? Or not, having pineapple on pizza is fun.
Craig Durr: That's a big debate. We can talk about that one. I believe people buy from people. Business is among people, and when you lose that, you lose some of the human elements.
Chris Neto: I will tell you that there are some great people inside Midwich that possess this power. Bill Ramer Monique, who recently joined the group, Tony Fergale… These are all people that I work closely with. Dan O'Donnell's excellent. You know, to build those relationships, it's a little different because when you look at distribution, you typically see box in, box out. We're not a box in, box out company. We stopped doing that when we started adding some other things into the mix, plus services.
We got into the broadcast side with a tool farm, and then we have our Midwich Ignite program, which is a venture capital. All these shows, ISE, InfoComm... I was recently at CES… they all have their innovation lab, some bigger than others. Some do a better job than others, but to be able to find a little company that's really onto something... You can say you're an angel investor and invest in whatever company and however you want, that's awesome. But to be able to invest into some of these companies, such as NetSpeek, help them along, and then help them make the connections in the industry is a difference between us and a banker, between us and somebody else.
Craig Durr: Because I think what you are doing, or that company is doing, is the approach, again, to our theme, building community. It isn't just about $1 in and $1 out. It's about what can I invest to help make this bigger and better for everyone? All right, let's wrap this up.
Chris Neto: I'm not wrapping it up. I'm eating it now.
Craig Durr: All right, well, we're gonna do that.
This leads me to the topic of what I think you're an expert at, which is a personal brand. I mean, it's something we all work at, like, I've come to you, and say, “Hey, what does it mean to build a personal brand?” What kind of advice do you share with people about this?
Chris Neto: You're different. You're a business owner. You are your business; your business is you. You curate your brand based around your business. It's a little different for myself as I'm an employee, typically, of most companies, right? And I've been with Midwich for seven years now. When I went to Midwich, I already had an established personal brand, right?
Craig Durr: But what does that mean? What does that mean to have a personal brand to you?
Chris Neto: You can do a lot of things in life. You can own a house, you can own a car, you can have a family. All that can be taken away from you. There are things that can't be taken away from you, like your education, and what you put yourself out to be as a brand.
Now, you can destroy a brand by doing some questionable things, but you know what? It's truly yours to own. And as an employee of a company, it's kind of the one of the things that you own and you shape. So I quickly established that I'm going to have a set of rules that I'm going to follow on the socials, and that socials, for me, was always about the business. I felt that was what I was good at because I don't have an interesting life. I drive a 2016 Camry with a dent in the front. There's nothing interesting. I don't have a lifestyle, a dashing lifestyle. My travels for business are not glamorous. I'm on a wing that tells you, man, I am in coach with everybody else. But that's who I am.
Craig Durr: That's the authentic part. Exactly, and I think that's a key thing about it, is authenticity. That's what I try to lean into. The personal brand part to me is everything.
Chris Neto: Yes, it's the foundation, if you can weave it into things, and if you can give credit to people, if you could amplify voices, right? That's another big thing. The big guys don't need help. They do in a lot of ways to humanize their bigger brands, right? But to humanize a brand in a way that… This is where we're gonna go, by the way, oh yeah, yeah, we're going to SVD.
Craig Durr: Speaking of brands, right?
Chris Neto: Speaking of brands. And this is a great example of personal brand, like, I'm not gonna go in there and tell you you have to buy these Jordans or these whatever. I'm gonna let you gravitate to what is yours?
Craig Durr: What speaks to me? What is my authenticity?
Chris Neto: Here, I'm making it very zen, very existential.
Craig Durr: So you're not going to tell me what to buy?
Chris Neto: Yeah, but I'm not going to tell you to wear those again.
Craig Durr: Okay, let's go work on some personal brands.
Oh, look at that. I think I got them.
Chris Neto: If you put pink laces on them, they look like Travis Scott's, which are like 1500 bucks.
Craig Durr: All right, I am set, dude.
Chris Neto: I am so proud of you.
Craig Durr: Show ready?
Chris Neto: Show ready.
Craig Durr: I appreciate it.
Chris Neto: I'm heading out that way, man.
Craig Durr: Okay. Hey, Chris, this is fantastic. I appreciate it absolutely. Have a fantastic ISE, thank you so much. You talked to me about community, about brand, about how you got here. I'm gonna take this forward.
Chris Neto: Dude, I hope so. I'm gonna check in on you. At the end of the show I'm gonna see what your show selfies are looking like. Make me proud that you've got some of the little bits and tidbits of knowledge. That's all I ask. And anything that obviously I'm doing, share it out. You know, hit me up on Twitter @chris_neto on LinkedIn especially, that's where I'm typically at. And specifically, check in one with me later this week. I want to hear how your feet, in this case, made it through the week wearing your brand new Jay.
Craig Durr: I think I'm gonna do it, too. All right, Chris, take care.
Hey, everyone. This has been another great episode of the Collaboration Cafe. Thank you so much for tuning in. My friend, Chris Neto, actually did a good job. I think we learned some really great things here. Next time, we're gonna take you to another great location, another cup of coffee. But till then, take care. We'll see you later.
