What do music, contests, and crowds have to do with one another? They’re all integral components of the business model that AudioDraft uses to connect the work of audio professionals with interested consumers. The concept is simple: you have a project that needs some audio design (music, score, or effects) and but you don’t have an in-house musician or audio professional but you do have a small chunk of money. You put that up on AudioDraft as a prize, list the project details, and then a bunch of audio designers take their best shot at and offer up clips of their work looking to win the prize.

It’s something of a change to the standard expert-consumer networking model in that it introduces a sort of contest architecture into the mix. Contest managers can offer a small number of licenses to reduce the charge of the world (2-years, 4-years, indefinite) and ostensively they could use the contest to find themselves a regular audio designer for their project—as well as audio designers could find themselves pulled into a regular gig via this mechanism as well.

Winners not only earn money from their sound design work but also visibility and acclaim.

So, what do you do when you need a new head of marketing and you have a preeminently powerful system for mobilizing sales through a network?

Crowdsource it: the Finnish corporation has decided to use the power of their affiliate network to choose a head of marketing.

"AudioDraft’s Affiliate Program is an easy way to earn money by telling friends and business contacts about our exciting audio design contests," said Mr. Teemu Yli-Hollo, CEO, AudioDraft. “We are truly excited about the opportunity to have a member of our user community join us as the Head of Marketing and Sales in Silicon Valley. We know this is a dream-come-true opportunity for many people in our community and look forward to meeting the top performers.”

The affiliate network already exists to help AudioDraft spread news of their contests and garner new customers interested in offering prizes. As the contests themselves are their primary product, the affiliate network pays people who direct contest organizers with prize money to the company. Until the end of April this year, affiliates can earn 10% of the prize money offered as their cut.

Now, until the end of this most recent “contest,” affiliates can compete against one another for the prize of the marketing job. While this seems like an odd way to do it, AudioDraft does want a marketing head in Silicon Valley and affiliates operate under the primacy of salesmanship. Therefore it does make sense that

The announcement of the new AudioDraft Head of Marketing and Sales is scheduled to be announced late April 2011.