Obviously, the eye contact rule is for face-to-face meetings. This is a hard one, by the way. It’s not that it is so difficult to understand the importance of eye contact, but it can be very awkward having to tell a spokesperson, especially a superior, that they need to do this. Let’s face it… people with eye contact problems can have other issues, yes? But in fact, no one has ever fired me for saying it when it needed to be said, but it can be awkward. Easier to convey is that spokespeople should use the writer’s first name more often than what seems normal. Media types won’t love me for saying this, but it is true for them as with all people, that hearing our own name somehow snaps us back into more conversational alertness. No, I can’t explain how that works, but it works.