Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Dan Moen. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Dan, appreciate you joining us today. Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?
My mission for Ebyssian Productions and Dijuri Media and myself is deeply rooted in my past; long before I got into the Creative Industry.
The story of my mission begins with my adoption experience. I was born in the Philippines and brought to the United States when I was 8 months old. I grew up in a community that was not diverse and I felt very alienated deep down, yet, I didn’t have the words at that time to explain my feelings. I had my friends and community, but there was always a desire to learn about other cultures and people. From there, I took up art such as painting and sculpting. I expressed my frustrations with these feeling through multi-mediums. The desire to connect to my roots grew later in life when I searched for my biological family and was Blessed and reunited through Facebook in 2017, and as the rest, they say, is history.
Creativity was always a method for me to express this life experience through music production, art, and performance. Later in life I grew a passion for Marketing and Advertising and focused my university studies on this; but also combined studies in Communications and Sociology. My philosophy is marketing and advertising can only excel when one understands socio-economics and the desires of the public. So this became the perfect marriage between creativity and business for me. A way to not only share stories and persuade ideas but also grow businesses.
My dream position became Creative Director and I my journey took a new turn post university where I got involved various ethnic community non-profits and activism. I felt the fuel to combine all of what I’ve learned and experienced to uplift minority communities and marginalized people in America. Two significant projects became a focal point for me; a tv show production and a podcast. The podcast because a round table style podcast inviting individuals with opposing and various views to have conversations anonymously if they chose to with goal for listeners to become hosts of their own episodes, and the tv show project became a grassroots project that I am co-writing and developing a team of creatives from a diverse range of backgrounds with the dream to pitch it to Netflix or other streaming services.
Today, I work full time as a Brand and Content Coordinator for a local social services non-profit that focuses on immigrants, refugees, and anyone in the greater community. Every design and production I produce is fueled by my journey from childhood through today. My mission in my industry is to combine creativity, marketing, and storytelling to uplift other individuals who feel marginalized and provide a platform for them to have the stage. My business, my work, and my entire being shares this soul in all that I do.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
My passions lie in all things creative and communications. I love marketing and understanding the need to build businesses and brand awareness through the means of creativity and market strategy. Most of my freelance work has been graphic design and photography, but with my full time day position I’m able to utilize all my skills; video production, graphics, animation, photography, and even some music composition. I live in Adobe Creative Suite and use Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, After Effects, an PremirePro daily.
My music production has always been global driven and I spent my whole life collecting and learning about musical instruments from around the world. I’ve composed two albums. On my website, I do research and share my findings about the instruments I’ve been collecting and playing.
With my two major projects, the tv show and podcast, they have become my passion projects with the dream to see them expand and grow a foothold in the media industry. Both projects have a strong mission to provide a platform for other BIPOC and LGBT+ individuals who are also in the creative industry or those who feel they desire to have their voice heard.
The TV show project is a story that focuses on a bi-racial family; a Black and Filipino family who own a boba tea shop. My vision for this show is a drama/comedy. I stress to my team that the production side and the cast should align with the identities of the characters. My belief is ‘authenticity through humanity’ meaning that the cast coming from the community being represented brings their own lived experience to the table. On the production side, I believe that a wide diverse range of individuals share multi faceted perspectives through the process of the show. As they are my main target audience, it’s critical to place people from the vary community represented in production, at the writers room, and in casting. Ultimately, I would love for this to become something that helps create a “Hollywood” industry for Michigan; one hub that everyone can be a part of. I feel many creatives in Michigan are spread out and it would be wonderful to have an official hub for us.
The podcast is called 3rd Paradigm and it’s a play on two words; Third Space, or a place that’s not work or home, places where individuals can practice the art of conversation, and paradigm as in paradigm shift. The vision of this project was to provide a platform for difficult conversations and topics in a safe environment. The show launched in 2020 admits the pandemic and is a brainchild from the in person round table I co-hosted called “Let Me Listen To You”. We are now in season four. The structure of the show is hosted by alias hosts; Clarity and Nuance. The participants who take on these alias names can change from person to person and episode by episode. The guests who come on the show have the full option to be fully anonymous with a false name, or to reveal who they are. We felt that it’s critical that people feel safe, but also be authentic especially with difficult and controversial topics. We never reveal the identities of the guests who have come on our past episodes. Ultimately, listeners can participate, and we encourage guests to become hosts of their own episodes. There are topics that my co-producer and I do not feel adequate to host certain topics, and would be better for someone who expertise or lived experience to host. So we would train and guide them through their own episodes. Our mission with this podcast is to provide a template for anyone who wants to share a public space over hard topics. It’s so critical now more than ever for us to be honest, ask hard questions, and listen with the intention to learn.
It’s honestly hard to pin down and explain when one asks, “what do you”, as there’s so my intersecting and interlocking passions that all mold together in my life. I can easily say “Brand and Content Coordinator” for my profession, but my work goes much deeper and in ways I try to give back to society with the skill set of creativity and marketing.
Any advice for managing a team?
The best advice when it comes to managing a team and maintaining high morale is to always have an open mind, validate your team’s perspectives while remaining firm, trust, and set a strong foundation. Being open minded to me allows for new informations to come in and potentially ways to improve a project or task that a team mate may have some inside knowledge to share. This also allows for new and innovative direction. Validating the teams feelings and perspectives for me is recognizing their human experience. There will always be situations that are frustrating and sometimes team members can clash heads, and sometimes with the leader, but acknowledging that their feelings are valid, but we must remain professional is a balance between both this develops trust. Trust the team are professional and are experts in their fields, and they must trust the leader to keep the momentum of the project going and give honest direction. My current manager is a great role model for sharing trust with our team. The final portion to me is that foundation. There needs to be structure and a set of expectations for all members involved, including the leader. There’s always room for improvement, but if the process, vision, or mission get lost, the team can fall apart.
What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?
The most rewarding aspect of being a creative is allowing my feelings and visions come out into all my work. It’s a constant journey of learning new skills and with the world becoming increasingly visual, it’s critical to be able to stand out from the algorithms when growing your business or sharing a message. I strongly feel it’s not that people are becoming “lazy” and don’t want to read, it’s because we are boarded now on social media and the internet with so much that it feels saturated, so as a creative, we bend and change our routes to find ways to keep attention for clients and the community.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://Www.dijurimedia.com
- Instagram: Dijuri.Media and/or Dijuri.Dan
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/daniel.moen.7/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danrmoen/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/dijuri
- Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/dijuri
- Other: Dijuri Music on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/6WY6HXhU7b9UIBwihhN5Uz?si=BbQNMdqlSfmYy-fPifIpow
3rd Paradigm Podcast on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2QUM2oHmrzppxqa6jr77Sz?si=3df6fd30d131427a
3rd Paradigm Podcast on Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/3rdparadigmpodcast
Image Credits
Self portrait photographed by Ben Despard. Images of individuals in “Project Light” ad are stock images provided by Envato.