In the case of people, the normal profile may contain such things as gender, age,
education, location, number of children, and marriage status.

Fig. 9.1.9 shows a “normal” profile.

Fig. 9.1.9 A normal profile.

The normal profile for a corporation may include such attributes as the size of
corporation, locations, type of product/service created, and revenue of the corporation.
There are different definitions of what is normal for different environments.

There are many reasons why a “normal” profile is useful. One reason is that the profile is
just plain interesting. The normal profile tells management at a glance what is going on
inside a system. But there is another very important reason why a normal profile is useful.
When looking at a large body of data, it is oftentimes useful to look at a single record and
measure just how far from the norm the record is. And you can’t determine how far from
the norm a record is unless you first understand the norm.

In many cases, the further from the norm a record is, the more interesting it becomes. But
you can’t spot a record that is far from the norm unless you first understand what the
norm is.

Distillation, Filtering

Chapter 9.1: Repetitive Analytics: Some Basics