A lot of the innovative companies we know did things that defied common sense. (And of course, there's a lot of companies we'll never hear of because they ignored common sense.) So, it's a case-by-case thing.
http://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/if-y...
Improperly attributed quotations are a bit of pet peeve of mine. I don't want to beat anybody up if they just read it on the web somewhere. But the problem is, anybody even slightly familiar with Jefferson would know he would never say anything like that.
I´ve actually seen this one attributed to Napolean Bonaparte and John Lennon as well...
However, I think there may be some truth to it. There are plenty of good ideas that aren't in anyway new, but for some reason have been forgotten or ignored. Sometimes, it is because the technology wasn't ready, but there can be a myriad of reasons. It is often worth perusing old magazines and journals for new insights.
Indeed. If you're using sense that is common to everyone, then 7 billion other people will have potentially thought of it before you. Original ideas imply uncommon sense.
I like that way of putting it. To me, having uncommon sense is not synonymous with ignoring common sense. Why not use both!
Also, I would like to point, that it's not the same "common sense" what a developer, who is some years in a university and techie environment, specialised on a few difficult technologies, than the "common sense" of a "final user" which does not care about technology quirks, code conventions, pre-existing tools, related news feeds, etc.