Watching the World Cup can be a reminder that yes, sometimes Americans do lag behind when it comes to “cool things.” Recent news stories prompted several such assertions around the office, and spirited inquiries into whether the United States is more hesitant than other parts of the world to implement mobile solutions for business use.

For example, some feel the recent news of China adopting messaging service WeChat as a way of making hospitals more efficient seems like a bold move. Would red flags be raised immediately in the States? “How secure is it? Is it HIPAA-compliant?” Love it or hate it, our government is a slow moving machine. It could potentially take years before such a solution was brought to American healthcare. And even when it moves relatively fast, technology needs to be “done right” to keep up with demand (cough original Obamacare website cough).

Five years ago, an article in Digital Trends warned about the American government impeding the progress of tech adoption. With all of the red tape and bureaucracy surrounding big government, the government seems like an easy target. And when it comes to big government, sometimes they can do some pretty cool things. Like create useful apps for its citizens.

Similarly, India earned applause this year from the United Nations, among other groups, for their Mobile Seva Project, which delivers public service information through texts or voice recordings to the nation’s citizens. We have similar systems in America, but this system is revolutionary in a country with a large rural population of poor and/or illiterate individuals who own cell phones

Stateside, there is talk regulating map apps on our phones at a national level.  Even San Francisco, so close to the hub of technological innovation – Silicon Valley, occasionally says “no” to technical advancement . Most recently, the hammer is coming down an app that allows users to sell their parking spaces.

Obviously, we don’t have an answer to the question we posed in the first paragraph. As always, what works in one country doesn’t necessarily work in another country and that’s okay. Now if we can just get a little better at this soccer thing…