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how can we make colors look like they are glowing?

You can try the glare shader
(http://docs.autodesk.com/SI/2015/ENU//i ... _Glare.htm)
It's getting connected using the output shader stack which you can find it in the pass properties.
-rr

Another option is the 2d glow, which also is an output shader (post-processing).
There also is a Mental Ray material to produce a glow effect in the Render Tree: glow
;)

that's not really recommended to post process the picture directly on the render...

I would consider two aproches:

1. The easy way is to render you image with a high dynamic range (so colors goes higher than the common 0 to 1 values). On glow material, just use a high color value (you can go higher on the HLS sliders).
Then with your comp app or XSI, you can simply apply a Glow only on high values parts you just have to up the threshold ;-)

If you don't have a "glow effect" simply level you rendered image to a range in your glow values, blur then add it to the source.

Plus you're playing with the 2000's way ;-) not the 80's

2. Output an special AOV. On your material, use a white "Store color in channel" with a "color 4 passthrough" pimped just before your material output. Then in your render pass output your new channel (AOV).
You'll get a mask you can glow with a comp app