Hybrid Meetings: What's Actually Working
- May 13
- 3 min read
Introduction: Meet The Panel
A conversation with Jason Paul (Slido) and Luca Bruschi (The LEGO Group)
Moderated by Iva Nachkova, 356 Labs — Present to Succeed Conference
Let's start with the honest question. Hybrid meetings — are companies getting better at them?
Jason: Not enough, honestly. Remote audiences still feel disengaged, and only a small percentage of companies have introduced any real hybrid etiquette. The awareness is there. The action, less so.
Luca: It hit us hard at The LEGO Group during the pandemic. We do onboarding every single month — new colleagues across two offices, Billund and Copenhagen. Before, everyone was in one room. Then suddenly everything had to go online, and then hybrid. We had to completely rethink how we run those sessions.
What did that rethink look like for you, Luca?
Luca: We built something new — a mix of presentations, live demos, and a LEGO building experience. We even added a Kahoot quiz at the end, where the winner takes home a LEGO set. People listen very carefully when there's a prize involved.
And Jason, did Slido itself need to change to keep up with hybrid?
Jason: Honestly, not that much. The product was built for in-person conferences from the start — so people didn't have to chase microphones around a room. When everything went remote, it just worked. Where we've focused more is education — making sure people know how to use the tool well across different contexts.
There are so many tools out there now. Slido, Miro, Kahoot, Teams — how do you even choose?
Jason: Keep it simple. If you're presenting or running a meeting, you've already got enough on your plate. Whatever you choose has to be easy for you and your audience — no instruction manual required. If people need to figure it out before they can use it, you've already lost some of them.
Luca: And be curious. Explore the tools you already have. In Miro, for example, you can now sign your sticky notes — small thing, but it streamlines everything. In Teams, you can use a foreground layer on top of your background. I used a Star Wars theme once and it became an icebreaker. These little things matter.
Where do you find inspiration for how to run better meetings?
Luca: LEGO bricks, honestly. I use models to prepare, to tell stories, to structure my thinking. You can photograph them, drop them into a Miro board, use them remotely. We even ran a strategy session where one colleague had to join from home sick, and we just adapted the Lego models into the digital canvas. It worked.
Jason: For me it's really about being rigorous with the technology you're using. Test it hard before you go live. If it holds up under pressure during testing, it'll hold up when you're on stage.
Final Thoughts: one piece of advice each for anyone running hybrid meetings right now?
Jason: Take a remote-first approach. If you design the experience so that remote participants can do everything the in-room people can do, you've solved most of the problem.
Luca: Be flexible and stay curious. Hybrid meetings aren't going away. The tools are there. You just have to be willing to explore them — and sometimes, bring a few LEGO bricks along for the ride.
Watch the Conversation
Jason Paul and Luca Bruschi both presented individual sessions at Present to Succeed. Watch Jason's full session on hybrid meeting facilitation and Luca's session on LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® on the Present to Succeed YouTube channel.
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