Formalizing the informal
The absence of informal aspects in distance learning forces us to rethink its fundamental nature. This constraint becomes a laboratory for innovation, developing methods that transcend the limitations of in-person training.
The paradoxical legitimacy of the informal
The formalization of the informal constitutes a paradox that first questions our own legitimacy. The informal, by definition, exists outside the framework. In a logic of pure efficiency, it might seem to be nothing but wasted time. This primary methodological difficulty consists in recognizing that the informal is not only important but essential to learning and innovation processes.
This question becomes particularly acute in the context of videoconference training. Participants, physically separated, can no longer spontaneously organize those informal moments that traditionally enrich the training experience. They are present only within the formalism of the pedagogical proposition. What might appear as a limitation was actually for me an opportunity to profoundly rethink the nature and function of the informal.
The informal revealed by its absence: hidden dimensions of knowledge
The informal represents those unstructured spaces where essential exchanges occur: transmission of tacit knowledge, building of interpersonal bonds, emergence of innovative ideas, personal appropriation of knowledge. In these coffee break moments, these corridor discussions, fundamental processes take place: the sharing of subjectivities around a common subject, the expression of disagreements that allow one to assert their singular thinking, the creation of clans and intellectual affinities.
Moreover, the informal allows the emergence of knowledge that sometimes exceeds that of the trainer. A participant may possess specific expertise, lived experience that enriches or nuances the formal content. These spontaneous contributions, impossible to program, constitute a wealth often lost in traditional systems.
Ignoring this dimension would amount to amputating the training experience of a substantial part of its value. Formalization then becomes not an attempt at control, but an act of recognition and valorization of these underground processes.
Methodology in action: three devices to recreate the informal
Faced with the absence of natural informal moments in videoconferencing, I developed several methods to recover the specific gains of these spontaneous moments, while enriching them with a new collective dimension.
1. Facilitated exchange and real-time mapping
The first method consists of creating exchange spaces between participants on given topics, moving away from the classic trainer-learner scheme. During these exchanges, a mind map is created by the trainer in real time, visible to trainees, capturing and structuring the ideas that emerge. This dual action—exchanging freely while seeing one’s ideas take visual form—legitimizes the informal elements that arise in conversation. The mind map becomes the tangible trace of these spontaneous emergences, giving them recognized existence and value.
2. The collaborative platform: three axes of expression
The second device relies on a contributive digital tool where each participant can publish their reflections along three proposed axes (without obligation):
- Personal synthesis: Each person reformulates what they have understood and retained. This apparently simple proposition reveals the singularity of each appropriation. Where we often believe that everyone will have made the same synthesis, the confrontation of texts reveals the richness of subjective perspectives. This diversity of understandings, usually confined to informal exchanges, becomes visible and shareable, and constitutes real learning: we are enriched by others’ perspectives on the subject (which previously only came in informal moments), which makes us consider it from various facets.
- Argued controversy: The space to express disagreements with the presented content. In face-to-face informal settings, these disagreements are spontaneously expressed after the training moment, allowing everyone to assert their own thinking. Formalized in writing and shared, they enrich collective reflection while preserving the critical dimension essential to all learning.
- Enriching contribution: The possibility to bring complements, nuances, experiences that exceed or complete the formal content. This opening recognizes that knowledge is not the trainer’s monopoly but can emerge from each participant. Where, in the informal of traditional training, these contributions were only shared in small, precisely informal groups, with writing, they become collective and considerably enrich knowledge for the collective.
3. Tag structuring: free navigation in knowledge
Trainees add thematic “tags” to their contributions, for which they are identified as authors. This allows thematic rather than hierarchical navigation. This horizontal structuring breaks the usual rigidity of training content, allowing personalized paths and fortuitous discoveries, essential characteristics of informal learning.
Reflective observation: documenting to understand
Beyond these specific devices, this approach involves continuous reflective observation. It involves documenting one’s own experiences of the informal, noting moments when it produces significant effects, identifying conditions favoring its emergence. This observation phase allows distinguishing different types of informal (social, cognitive, creative) and identifying recurring features in these dynamics.
This documentation itself becomes working material, allowing continuous refinement of the implemented devices. It also constitutes a form of progressive legitimization of the informal, by making visible its often invisible contributions.
Epistemological humility: accepting incompleteness
The formalization of the informal requires a particular posture: that of “knowing that we don’t know.” This approach opposes « veridism », the tendency to believe we hold absolute truth about the processes at work. It implies accepting the incompleteness of any formalization, recognizing the subjectivity inherent in observation, maintaining constant openness to questioning.
This humility is not weakness but strength. It allows welcoming the unexpected, valuing the diversity of experiences, building knowledge that is enriched by its own limits. Each experience being unique and contextual, it is through the accumulation of these singularities that a finer understanding of the processes at work is progressively built. In the example of videoconference training that I experimented with using these principles (you will find traces of one of them below), the knowledge produced and acquired by participants far exceeds the content that was mine alone as a trainer. And this knowledge is written, shared, durable, therefore perhaps ultimately more constructive than unformalized informal in usual training.
Expanded applications and ethical precautions
This approach that I developed for video training can extend to other contexts. In research, it invites integrating the informal into protocols, recognizing serendipities as sources of knowledge. In organizations, it allows mapping informal networks without freezing them, creating spaces conducive to spontaneous emergence. And in traditional face-to-face training, it led me to use writing much more in parallel and its sharing via digital tools, in order to also build collective resources based on the informal and on collective intelligence.
But this approach carries risks. The main danger lies in the denaturation of the informal through its very formalization. It is essential to maintain vigilance on the effects of our interventions, to preserve truly free spaces, to accept that certain aspects will always escape any capture. Ethical questions—respect for privacy, consent, transparency about uses—constitute necessary safeguards.
The amplifying effect: when the formal transcends the informal
These experiences thus reveal this surprising result: formalized informal can become more powerful than spontaneous informal. In classical training, the informal often remains personal, limited to exchanges between a few individuals. Formalization devices create a collective informal, where each person’s contributions become resources for all.
The documentation produced far exceeds in richness what could have emerged from traditional informal exchanges. Subjectivities, instead of remaining confined to asides, irrigate the very content of the training. This amplification is only possible because formalization respects the essence of the informal: freedom of expression, valorization of singularities, openness to the unexpected.
A living methodology for a changing world
The formalization of the informal cannot be conceived as a fixed methodology. It must itself remain informal in its evolution, continuously adapting to contexts and learning. This dynamic tension between structure and spontaneity constitutes its own richness.
The challenge is not to capture the informal in rigid grids, but to create conditions for its emergence and recognition. By assuming the incompleteness of our knowledge and valuing the diversity of experiences, we develop practices that honor the complexity of reality while offering landmarks for action.
This approach, born from these experiments I conducted with the Observatory of Cultural Policies, ultimately teaches us something essential about the very nature of transmission: it is in the recognition and valorization of spaces of freedom that the appropriation of knowledge truly takes place. The formalization of the informal is not its domestication but its revelation, not its reduction but its amplification. It is in this subtle alliance between framework and freedom that perhaps the very essence of any authentic pedagogical act is revealed.
My multidisciplinary practices—spanning creation, cultural action, training, and support in a wide range of cultural, social, and educational contexts across France—provide me with a privileged, subjective, and in-depth observatory of the cultural sector in France.
This sector is weakened by its position, often deemed “non-essential” by many political leaders, by the competition from digital platforms in cultural practices, as well as by challenges and obstacles related to the difficulty of establishing interdisciplinary collaborations and the scarcity of evaluations, which are often poorly conducted and instrumentalized.
My observatory allows me to identify dynamics that work, as well as difficulties I observe. Here, I propose to share my analyses, methods, and suggestions, hoping they may prove useful. My goal is to contribute to a stronger cultural sector in the future, as I believe that defending a cultural sector funded by taxpayers’ money holds the potential for emancipation, the development of freedoms, democracy, and the capacity to act—in a way that is fundamentally different from what private actors produce.
This is possible if there is no hypocrisy, and in my view, it comes at the cost of a commitment to lucidity and self-questioning, a choice to deconstruct representations, and perhaps to challenge certain privileges and systems of domination.
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Life is freedom and love.
