We are less than a week out from the Arizona Entrepreneurship Conference #AZEC09 and once again I open my email and it is full of "volunteers." People who want to volunteer to help us with the conference, and even PR people volunteering their clients to speak. It made me furious this morning, so here's the rant.

Listen, you cheeseballs and dirtbags, we needed volunteers eight months ago when we started planning the conference, not now.  We have had them lined up forever — members of the community who have done the web site, the program, the PR, the logistics, the marketing, the video, etc.  We make them sponsors. The entire friggin conference is put on by volunteers: only the food and facility get paid. And why is that so?

Because, cheeseballs and dirtbags, this conference is a FUNDRAISER. for a CHARITY. That means we don't put the money in our pockets.  We use it to fund programs for laid-off workers, domestic violence victims, returning felons, and others who are trapped in low wage jobs or no jobs.  We want to teach them how to be self-sufficient by findin