The famous example receives attention that an equally useful local one may never get.

Attention pools where attention already is. A well-known case gets studied, cited and visited while something just as instructive sits down the road with nobody looking at it, and the difference between them is rarely quality. Reputation is a record of who was noticed early, compounding since. Once you see that, the famous version stops being proof of anything except its own visibility.

Try looking closer to home before reaching for the celebrated case. The workshop in your town, the colleague who solved this quietly, the small organisation doing it well. You will often find the lesson is more transferable, because it comes from conditions that resemble your own.