Creativity CAN be promoted.

a friend of mine asked about "how to increase creativity?". interesting indeed.

i once thought that it's something you are either born with or without. then i noticed it isn't exactly.

to ensure that i don't mislead him, i googled up and found 3 pieces of advice:

1) encourage creativity.
2) train your creativity.
3) clear your day with only list of works you WANT to do.

if you were to ask me? i would simply advice you to engage yourself with loads of questions. keep asking more and more, QUALITY questions. devise answers and solutions that are NEW and INNOVATIVE as a start. then create your own version. then try to make them more and more practical. always give yourself a chance to see things differently than you used to. have an open mind. be receptive. embrace ideas and creative inputs from others. then think and reflect about them to yourself. give your mind some fresh breath of air. when you engage yourself in things you wana do instead of routines you hate. you will start to notice some inspiring new thoughts flowing.

by the way, surround yourself with creative people who embrace creative ideas and not brutally penalize funky creativity. don't give yourself a chance to be discouraged for evolving creativity before you even got something cool rolling in your mind.

remember one thing, if you want to be encouraged to be creative, you have to start with yourself encouraging others too.

and 1 more thing, never snatch people's ideas. remember to give credit to those who come up with the original ideas if you know who they are. at least be honest with yourself. if it isn't your original idea, state it isn't. for instance, the first 3 guidelines were taken from sources

http://www.buzzle.com/editorials/9-17-2005-77001.asp
http://www.freshcreation.com/entry/5_ways_to_increase_creativity/

steven gillman is the person to be given credit to for 1 and 2 if i'm not mistaken.

i'm sure you can think of more creative ways to increase your creativity. it's a test for you. think outside the box. i gave you the theory and some examples. you devise the cooler versions. =P